


Connection

by Braincoins



Series: Connection-verse [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Badass Pidge, Blood, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 2 AU, Story that got away from its author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 17:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8587555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins
Summary: Leadership has its consequences. The paladins and their lions are back with the Castle, but Shiro's more than a little worse for wear. Allura's apparently been keeping secrets and no one's happy about that. Keith and Lance have a confrontation. Meanwhile, the Galra Empire has a new plan to capture Voltron. With the paladins' trust of each other fracturing, will they be able to stop Zarkon from succeeding this time?





	

**Author's Note:**

> -Shoutout to Knightwraith for helping me with the critter and the Galra plan for it, as well as for his beta-reading; Hugs & Cuddles to Miss L and Tybunneh for their awesome beta-reading assistance; and, of course, to the inimitable [Echo Menhir](http://explodingcrenelation.tumblr.com) for editing. Y'all are awesome and I love you! 
> 
> -Allura uses the exact same phrasing with Shiro that she did with Pidge when she was trying to get the latter to admit she's a girl. Thus Pidge's comment on it.
> 
> -Yes, I stole the Thermians from Galaxy Quest because I am a dork. Or, rather, I stole the name.
> 
> -"I'm trying to keep this the same rating as the show," she said, as she wrote scenes of suicidal explosions and disemboweled captives. "No expletives! I'm so good!"
> 
> -Yes, I stole the Corellians from Star Wars because I am still a dork. Or, rather, I stole the name.
> 
> -Neu Yorn Ticks Best-Seller. I should be ashamed of myself for that. I'm not. 
> 
> -Keith and Lance's kiss scene was inspired by [THIS wonderful piece of work](http://pussycat-scribbles.tumblr.com/post/150974200291/enter-shiro-stage-right-extended-pause-as-they) by [pussycat-scribbles](http://pussycat-scribbles.tumblr.com), who was kind enough to let me try to describe in pitiful words what their art does in 6 panels
> 
> -Commander Smeq? No relation to Dreamworks Animation's Home. No, none at all. Also, in related news, I am NOT a dork. Ignore any previous author's notes that said so. 
> 
> -the "league exploding" bit is stolen from The Librarian: Quest for The Spear. I just couldn't help myself because it turns out that, protestations to the contrary aside, I really am a HUGE dork.  
> =========================================

            “I know I shouldn’t bother you like this, but it’s just… I have no one else to turn to. And you’re such a good listener, Shiro.” Okay, that made her feel a little guilty. She shouldn’t be joking at a time like this. “Forgive me,” she duly apologized.

            Finding the paladins had taken time that none of them, least of all the universe itself, had. It had been a sleepless time for her, and likely for Coran, too, though he worked hard not to show it. So much time, and really they’d only been able to track down Hunk, Pidge, and Lance; Keith had found them. And he’d brought with him a nearly-dead Shiro.

            “I really don’t have anyone else to talk to about this. There’s no one I can really confide in. Coran’s been so helpful, and I trust him with my life, obviously, but there are things one cannot discuss with an advisor. And as much as I adore the mice, they are still, well, _mice._ They just don’t understand sometimes.” She stopped pacing and sat down on the stairs near his cryo-replenisher.

            “I feel so... so _guilty_. I can’t stop feeling like I should’ve been able to do something to stop this all from happening.” She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she would’ve been able to do; the wormhole had been destabilized by the Galra, after all. But she was the one who fueled the wormhole jumps, so they were her responsibility. The paladins were her responsibility. Everything, ultimately, was her responsibility.

            She looked up at him, frozen in stasis as he healed. “Don’t tell the others, but sometimes I wish I could just go back to sleep for another ten thousand years. I might, if I could guarantee that I would wake to a safer, more peaceful universe, one without Zarkon and his treachery.” She paused and sighed and leaned her head against the side of the pod. “No, no, I don’t mean that. I could never turn my back on so many people in need. But, you see, my problem is that I can’t even say something like that to Coran or the paladins… well, the other paladins.” _The ones who are awake to hear me_. “I have to be strong, for them. I have to be a leader. And I’m honored to have this task, I truly am, but at the same time, I feel so… cut off from everyone. Argh, I shouldn’t even be saying these things.”

            She stood and stretched and frowned again at the replenisher readouts. They flashed between showing him nearly healed and showing him still badly wounded. Pidge had surmised that Shiro’s prosthetic was causing the glitches, though she thought it was a tech compatibility problem. Allura rather thought that, if Pidge’s hypothesis was correct, it was more likely that the pod was trying to heal something that could no longer _be_ healed. Perhaps it was a bit of both. The problem might not be the _tech_ so much as the magic in the prosthetic; who knew what Zarkon’s druids were capable of?

            Shiro looked well enough to her, but she was inclined to leave him be. “Sleep while you can,” she told him, barely able to keep the envy out of her voice, “and come back to us when you’re ready. We’ll need you at your best. Sorry, I don’t mean to pressure you.”

            She tried to think of a new tack to take. “You probably want to hear about the paladins anyway.” She smiled to herself. “They’re all worried about you, of course. They resent it when I come to relieve them.”

            Everyone wanted to know how Shiro was doing. Coran had been the one to suggest shifts: let one person at a time stay with him while the others got their rest or worked or trained as necessary. While searching for their lost paladins, she and Coran had repaired what they could of the battered Castle of Lions, but having the extra hands – and especially having Pidge and Hunk back – was speeding things along nicely. And none of that would’ve been happening at all if everyone was just hanging around the infirmary day and night. So they swapped out every few hours on a schedule Coran had set up.

            At first, Allura had thought the entire idea of staying by a cryo-replenisher pod was silly, but as Pidge pointed out, Shiro was likely to have a lot of questions when he came to. With the pod’s display unreliable as to how long it would take to heal him, it actually wasn’t a bad idea to have someone nearby for when he awoke. And, even if she couldn’t admit it, she _was_ worried about him.

            Still, she felt like she should be doing more than just pacing and waiting. What had started as her commenting out loud on the ridiculousness of her standing around doing nothing had turned into long chats with the unresponsive leader of her paladins. She missed her father, and no one would ever, _could ever_ replace him, but talking out loud “to Shiro” helped her sometimes.

            “But they’re being good, even Lance. I know, I know; I’m as surprised as you are.” She laughed a little as she resumed walking the floor in front of Shiro’s pod. “They’re so dedicated now. Even beyond their assigned tasks and chores, they’re really working hard, coming up with new ideas and suggestions.” She left out that it was likely they were all looking for distractions. She also didn’t mention that there hadn’t been a whole lot of communication the last few days, aside from brief reports. Everyone was keeping to themselves as they worked, save for Pidge and Hunk, who were often collaborating on upgrades and maintenance of the Castle’s systems. If they talked while they worked, they didn’t do so around Allura.

            But she was trying to stay positive here. “Pidge thinks she can get the Castle the same cloaking device she’s worked up for the Green Lion, though so far it’s proving difficult to pull off. Hunk is talking about improvements to the food dispensers; I think that time when the kitchen machinery attacked him still gives him nightmares.” She frowned a little. “I doubt he’d tell you so,” _if for no other reason than I’m probably the only one crazy enough to talk to you like this_ , “but Keith’s very upset. He needs you in a way the others don’t.

            “They all need you, and not just because you’re their leader and they look up to you, though they do, of course. But Keith… it’s as if he takes it personally that you’re in this state. And I can’t help but feel the same way, as I said earlier. Er, that I’m partially responsible for your condition; I certainly don’t blame Keith! And _all_ of the paladins miss you.” She turned away from the cryo-pod, trying to gather her thoughts and, strangely, her courage. It wasn’t as if Shiro could hear her, after all, but she wasn’t used to airing her private thoughts, even to (essentially) empty rooms.

            “ **I** miss you. And part of that is that I’ve never appreciated what you do as much as I do now. I mean, I always thought you did a wonderful job as team leader, but now I must do your job on top of my own, and it’s exhausting. I feel so tired. I never knew I could feel this tired. And I’ve no one to seek counsel from since I lost Father…’s AI,” she tacked on quickly, as a reminder to herself. She’d lost her father a long, long time ago, no matter how fresh the sting of that loss was.

            “But it isn’t just that you’re not here to lead the other paladins. You’re a great leader, Shiro. It’s in your blood. You know what it means to sacrifice for your team, for others, for the greater good. And you’ve fought the Galra directly; you were fighting even before you or any of the others became paladins. I can’t imagine what you must’ve gone through, and I don’t mean to downplay your suffering at all, but…” She hugged herself and closed her eyes. “Sometimes it feels like you’re the only one who could really understand me, besides Coran. And, as I’ve said, he can only be of so much help to me. There is still a distance there that must be maintained.

            “A leader’s life is sometimes a lonely one. It’s important to have confidants, but there are so few to be had when a leader must stand so tall, must appear so… invincible. I suppose it would be wrong to confide in you, since I am supposed to be _your_ leader as well, but…”

            “Allura, you can always confide in me if you need to.”

            She whipped around so fast she accidentally smacked Shiro with her hair. He stumbled back a bit, looking as if it might knock him over, and she rushed to steady him, one hand going to his shoulder and the other to his waist. “I’msosorryIhadnoideayou’dawokenandIdidn’tmeantohityoujustnowareyoualright?!”

            “Is that meant to be in English?” he asked with a weak laugh. She blinked and realized how fast she’d been talking and smiled sheepishly. He smiled back, looking nearly as tired as she felt. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Princess. I’m sorry.”

            “Oh, no, I should be the one apologizing to you. How are you feeling?”

            “Not quite a hundred percent, but okay. Better than I was, anyway.”

            “I’m glad to see you awake. And I’m sorry about… well, what you must’ve overheard.” She paused a moment and then asked, “Just how much _did_ you overhear?”

            “Uh, it was kind of… fuzzy, at first? I woke up, the pod opened, but it took me a bit longer to actually understand words.”

            “But when you _did_ start understanding them, what were they?” she asked, trying not to sound annoyed at his delaying tactics.

            “The first ones were… ‘I miss you’,” he admitted, blushing slightly.

            Allura’s cheeks reddened a bit and she realized she was still holding him. She let go of him quickly and, thankfully, he managed to stand just fine on his own two feet. “Yes, well, I…”

            “I won’t tell anyone. You were telling me that in confidence.”

            “I didn’t really mean to be telling it to you,” she pointed out. “I was really more just talking to myself.”

            “I know. I get it. Sometimes it’s good to talk it out. But I think I do need some food, and to find out what, exactly, has been going on while I was out of commission.”

            She nodded. “We’ll catch you up while you eat.”

            “Good. I’m so hungry I might even be able to stomach Coran’s paladin lunch. Though maybe we shouldn’t test that theory just yet.” His smile was back, though weak, and she already felt a little better. Shiro was back. She wasn’t leading alone anymore.

            And, most importantly, they could now get back to fighting Zarkon. _Time to defend the universe_ , she thought to herself.

          

 

            “Anything else?” Shiro asked as he pushed his now-empty bowl away. No one spoke up. “In that case, I have a few questions.”

            “Yeah, let’s start with ‘Why didn’t you tell us Zarkon was the Black Paladin?!’” Lance demanded of the princess. The other three nodded in agreement. Pidge was glaring, arms folded; Hunk looked confused and betrayed; and Keith was a pillar of simmering rage. Shiro had just woken up from a long nap and was already kind of wishing he could crawl back into the pod and go unconscious again. But running away from problems didn’t solve them, and, well…

            “That was pretty much my first question, yes.”

            Allura sighed and hung her head. “We needed you, all of you. I truly believed you were sent to us for a reason.” She looked up, her gaze sweeping over the paladins. “If I had told you when you first arrived that Zarkon had been the Black Lion’s original paladin, would you have trusted me?” She ended her sweep on Shiro and held his gaze. “Would you have been so willing to step up to take his place?”

            “If you’d told us he betrayed you and all that, maybe!” Hunk put in.

            “Hey, I would’ve trusted you!” Lance declared. “Blue brought me here, after all, so obviously…”

            “Yeah, a giant alien robot cat takes you halfway across the universe,” Keith deadpanned. “Why _wouldn’t_ you trust everything and everyone you meet on the other side?”

            “YES! Exactly!” Shiro stifled a groan at Lance’s triumphant exclamation. “Especially when they’re as beautiful as you are,” and Allura did _not_ keep herself from groaning as Lance waggled his eyebrows at her.

            “Hasn’t trusting pretty faces already gotten you into trouble?” Keith reminded him.

            “Are you saying I shouldn’t trust Allura?”

            “I’m saying you need to start thinking with your head and stop thinking with your-”

            “Keith,” Shiro warned. Fortunately, both boys backed down.

            Pidge pushed her glasses back up with one finger. “And what about _after_? So, okay, you didn’t want to tell us when we first got here, but we’ve been through a lot together by now. We’ve given up a lot to be here and to fight Zarkon, and it’s not that we’re not dedicated, but you’ve had a lot of time to come clean.”

            “Pidge has a good point.” Shiro didn’t like criticizing Allura, at least in part because it felt like insubordination, but a good soldier knew when – and, more importantly, how – to speak up to his superiors: it was all a matter of timing and tone. The timing was out of his hands at this point, but he tried to keep his tone level despite feeling just as angry as the rest of his team. “It might’ve been nice to have that info before we showed up on his doorstep.”

            “And who told you to do something so stupid?!” Allura retorted hotly. So much for de-escalation. “You brought Voltron _right to Zarkon_ , which is **exactly** what you were **NOT** supposed to do!”

            “Were we just supposed to leave you there?” Hunk asked.

            “YES!”

            “Told you,” Keith muttered. Lance whapped him upside the head, and this time Shiro jumped to his feet before they could get started.

            “Knock it off, you two!” He glared at them until he was mostly sure they weren’t going to get into a fight here and now and then turned back to Allura. “I was **not** about to leave you in Zarkon’s hands. You’re too important, Allura.”

            “Not as important as Voltron and its paladins! Have none of you been listening to me all this time?! Voltron is the _only_ thing that can stop Zarkon. Until you five are strong enough to fight him, you had no business being anywhere _near_ him! And you clearly are _not_ strong enough yet, judging from what Coran has told me about what went on out there.”

            “We would’ve been a lot better prepared if we’d known what we were walking into,” Shiro reminded her sternly. “Zarkon still has a connection with the Black Lion.”

            “Zarkon _had_ a connection with the Black Lion _ten thousand years ago_! Your connection is current! It should have been the stronger one!”

            Shiro slammed his hands on the table, leaning towards the princess. “Well, I’m sorry I wasn’t _strong enough_ , Princess, but some sort of _warning_ **_would have been nice_**!”

            “Stop it!” Hunk shouted, before pouting childishly. “I hate it when you two fight!”

            “He’s not wrong though,” Pidge said. “And why didn’t Coran tell us any of this, hmm?”

            The royal advisor had been seated and silent through most of this, but he just shrugged and spread his hands as all eyes turned to him. “It wasn’t my place. I agreed with the princess on not telling you initially; I figured it was her place to fill you in when she felt you were ready. None of us expected you’d have to face Zarkon so soon.”

            Shiro narrowed his eyes. “You should’ve told us before we went in.”

            “I was a little distracted at the time, if you’ll recall,” Coran reminded him. “We all were. And I never thought you’d have to face him directly.” He shot a look at Keith, who didn’t seem to care. “But, frankly, the princess is right: Zarkon shouldn’t have had the ability to take over the Black Lion again, nor to disband Voltron like that.”

            “Oh, don’t _you_ start,” Shiro growled.

            “No, no, that’s not what I mean.” Coran rose finally. “Zarkon was more powerful than any of us expected, and we expected quite a lot, sad to say.” He looked to Allura. “I don’t know if it has something to do with the quintessence they’re harvesting or if there’s something else, but… well, it looks like it’s not just Galra technology that’s gotten more powerful than we remember.”

            Shiro straightened up and began to ease down. “We need more accurate information on what we’re up against, that’s for sure.”

            “I still want to know _how_ we were able to leave,” Pidge put in. “The barrier just… deactivated. Why?”

            “Uh, ‘cause they wanted to mess with our wormhole on our way out, DUH,” Lance told her. “Split us up, make us easier to take out.”

            “I don’t think so,” Pidge replied. “I think that was more of a last-ditch thing _because_ the barrier went down. If Zarkon wants Voltron so badly, well, we _did_ deliver it right to him. Why let us go at all? Splitting us up just means time and resources spent hunting us all down when he already had what he wanted right there in front of him.”

            Hunk nodded. “Yeah, normally I might be like, ‘Oh, he was afraid of how awesome we are’, but let’s face it: we were not at our most awesome at that point.”

            “And how was he fighting out there without a suit on?” Keith put in.

            “He was NAKED?!” Everyone winced at Lance’s sudden volume increase, but Keith just looked annoyed.

            “No, but I mean… okay, he had a _suit_ of some sort on, but he didn’t have anything protecting his face or… look, How Was He BREATHING?”

            “And not exploding?” Pidge mused. “Well, explosively decompressing, to be more accurate.”

            “Do you _have_ to be more accurate?” Hunk asked, looking a little green around the gills.

            “Also, freezing…”

            “STOP IT!”

            “Even more information we don’t have,” Shiro sighed in annoyance, falling back into his chair.

            “Yes, Zarkon seems to be getting more and more powerful the more we think about it,” Coran said.

            “So let’s stop thinking about it?” Hunk offered. He shrugged when everyone stared at him. “Hey, look, is it really going to get us anywhere right now, beyond ‘we need more information’?”

            “Good point,” Shiro acknowledged. “We have a lot of intel we need and standing around saying that we need it isn’t going to get it for us.”

            “I’ll go back to combing through what we got out of that ship,” Pidge volunteered. “Maybe there’s something I overlooked.” She was gone before Shiro could thank her for it.

            “And dude, you have GOT to teach me how to get a wicked sweet cannon on MY lion!” Lance told Keith.

            “I would if I could, but…”

            “Would you though?” Hunk asked. “REALLY?”

            Lance looked over at Keith with wide eyes and a trembling lower lip. Keith backed away as Lance got closer to him with that puppy dog pleading look, then shoved Lance’s face away as he admitted, “Yeah, I would. Defeating Zarkon is more important. But I… honestly don’t know. I was so…”

            “Hotheaded and stupid?” Coran put in.

            “…I was going to say ‘caught up in the heat of battle’,” Keith sulked.

            “You don’t remember?” Lance abruptly stopped the exaggerated pouting. “Great. Just great!”

            Keith opened his mouth to retort, but Shiro interrupted that fight before it could begin. “Keith, go back to your lion and see if you can figure out how you activated that cannon. See if there are data logs, go over the outside, maybe just sit there and try to see what jogs your memory. It could be an ability all the lions have or it might be a trick only Red can pull off; either way, we need to know.”

            Keith nodded. “I’m on it.” And he jogged off towards his hangar bay.

            “I’m going to check the Castle data logs,” Coran said, “from the battle in general and from what we have of Keith’s battle against Zarkon. What with the repairs and hunting you five down, I haven’t had much of a chance to really dig into the raw data.”

            “Good. Thank you, Coran.”

            Before Coran left, he eyeballed Lance. “You were in the middle of cleaning duty before Shiro woke up, if I recall?”

            “Aw, c’mon, man!”

            “None of that! Back to work!”

            “Jeeze.” He slumped his shoulders and slunk off back to his cleaning supplies under Coran’s watchful eye. Satisfied, the royal advisor headed back to his own duties.

            “Yeah, I should get back to diagnostics,” Hunk said. “The Castle systems are like ten thousand years old after all, and Pidge and I were working on getting ‘em upgraded before you woke up.” Hunk paused on his way out and said, “It’s good to have you back, Shiro.”

            Shiro smiled. He could practically still feel the bear hug Hunk had given him when he’d first seen him walking out of the infirmary. “Thanks, Hunk. It’s good to be back.” Hunk grinned and walked out, whistling.

            Allura came over to pick up Shiro’s empty bowl. “I’ll just…”

            “I need to talk to you.”

            She stopped. “What about?”

            “Zarkon and the Black Lion.”

            She sighed heavily and set the bowl back down, then retreated to her seat. “I should have told you. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

            “Thank you, and I’m sorry I yelled at you, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” She tilted her head just a little as a cute, quizzical expression crossed her face. “Zarkon still has a connection to the Black Lion, and it’s strong enough that he could force Voltron to disband and force me out of the lion itself. I’m worried that if he could do that, he might’ve been able to get intel about us while he was at it.”

            Well, the cute expression of confusion was gone, blasted away by shock. “You think his connection is _that_ strong?”

            “I tried as hard as I could to stop it, but he tore us apart.” He couldn’t bear to look at her as he said it. “I don’t want to make the mistake of underestimating him again.”

            “I wouldn’t have said he could do something like that before all of this, but… I suppose we have to consider the possibility.”

            “And if he could do it once, he can do it again. That would mean any direct confrontation with Zarkon himself would be doomed to fail; he’d know our battle plans the second he connected with the Black Lion.”

            “But we can’t exactly stop using it. We need it to form Voltron.”

            “Well, we wouldn’t have to stop using it. We’d just have to…” He paused and groaned. “Stop giving its pilot information on what we’re doing.” He scrubbed a hand back into his hair. “And that’s not…”

            “It _is_ possible. To a certain extent. It would mean I’d have to continue leadership of the paladins. You’d only be given as much information as was absolutely necessary for you to know.”

            “No,” he said immediately, remembering what he’d overheard in the infirmary. He turned back to her. “You’ve done so much already. You shouldn’t have to keep doing all of that as well.”

            “The only other option is that someone else becomes the Black Paladin.” She fell silent.

            He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling to think about that. He knew the boys – and Pidge – missed Earth. He missed it, too. Being out here, stopping Zarkon now before he could enslave or obliterate Earth – that was important. And freeing everyone he’d enslaved was the right thing to do. Shiro was doing good out here. He was discovering new things about the universe every day. Aside from his inability to go home again, this was just about all he’d ever wanted.

            _And, let’s face it, could you ever go home again after all of that?_ He couldn’t remember everything that had gone on while he was a prisoner of the Galra Empire, but he knew enough to know he wasn’t the same Takashi Shirogane that they’d captured on Kerberos. He didn’t have to look down at his right hand because he could feel it, the cold metal and the… just the _feeling_ of something so strange, so alien, so _NOT HIM_ there, but it was him, it would respond if he thought to wave or wiggle his fingers or… _or kill people_ , he thought.

            He closed his eyes and tried not to think of Sendak’s voice in his head. _Do you really think a monster like you could be a Voltron paladin?!_ He’d been so proud to serve as the Black Paladin. It had given him a renewed sense of purpose, of belonging. He was _living_ again, not just surviving another day in Zarkon’s prison. The Black Lion, the castleship, all of this… this was his home now. Even without being a paladin, he could still do good out here. He could still help the cause, even without ever getting back into the cockpit, but…

            He started a little when he felt Allura’s hand on his right shoulder and his eyes turned to hers. She was looking down at him in concern. “Shiro, I don’t want you to stop being the Black Paladin. I don’t even know who we’d get to replace you.”

            “You could,” he managed to choke out. He cleared his throat and sat up straight, trying to sound normal again.

            She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

            “I do. You’re a natural-born leader, Allura, and you were raised to be one on top of that. The guys respect you. The Black Lion would choose you easily. It’d probably even like you better than me,” he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

            “I can’t think of why it would,” she said softly.

            “Well, for one thing, you’re Altean. I bet it respects its creators more than some random Earthling…”

            “The Lions were never piloted solely by Alteans,” she told him. “They’re not closed-minded in that way.”

            “Plus, you’re…” He tried to figure out how to explain it and finished lamely, “…you.”

            She blushed. “What does that mean?” she asked.

            “Well, for starters, you have the ability to rejuvenate an entire planet.”

            “That was a Balmera, and it’s not anything different than my father used to do, except for scale.”

            “You motivated an entire race of people who were ready to lay down and die. You convinced them to live, to not give up.” He put his hand over hers on his shoulder, and her blush got worse. “Do you think I’m a good leader?” He’d heard her say so when he first came out of cryo, but he was trying to make a point here (and he wouldn’t mind hearing her say it again).

            “Yes, of course you are.”

            “Thank you. Well, you’re the one I follow, without hesitation or doubt. If the Black Lion chose me, why wouldn’t it choose you?”

            She was quiet, smiling at him sort of sadly, and then she looked away. “I’d rather not test that theory. Let’s see if we can get by without going that route, hm?”

            “How? The only other suggestion was to avoid giving me as much information as possible. I can’t be an effective leader like that. You’d be the de facto leader anyway; why not suit up and fight Zarkon yourself? Your connection with the Lion might not be as strong as his with… whatever it is he’s doing, but…” He looked away again. “…you might be stronger than I am when it comes to keeping him from connecting. I’m… I’m just…”

            _Broken_ , he couldn’t help thinking. _Weak_. _It was so easy for him to…_

            She interrupted him before he could follow that dark path too far. “Well, what if it’s not even the Black Lion? What if you’re wrong?”

            “What else would it be?”

            “I don’t know,” she said, gaze dropping to his hand on hers. Then her eyes widened. “Your hand.”

            “Oh, sorry.” He blushed now, and dropped his hand away from hers quickly. “I didn’t mean to…”

            “No, no, _your hand_. Your arm! It’s Galra technology. Perhaps that’s how Zarkon was able to take control!”

            He blinked and looked at his arm. “I… suppose it’s possible.”

            “It’s more than possible,” she insisted. “We should have Pidge and Coran look at it right away.” She grabbed his right wrist and hauled him out of his seat. “Come on!”

 

 

            “Well?” It was hard to keep from bouncing on her toes.

            “I’ve been looking at his arm for literally five seconds, Princess,” Pidge groused. “Settle down.” She was kneeling next to him, poking at the edges of the plates. Shiro twitched a little in his seat, and Pidge looked up at him. “Sorry. Does it hurt?”

            “No, not… not actually. But it… I don’t know, it seems like it should hurt?” Shiro ventured. He shrugged.

            “Well then, stop moving,” Pidge told him. Then she frowned a little and amended, “Stay as still as you can anyway.” She readjusted her glasses.

            “I’ll do my best.”

            “Okay, as soon as I find a way in here…”

            “You might have to detach the arm entirely,” Coran put in apologetically.

            “Might do it anyway, if you don’t mind, Shiro? It might be a little strange being without it for a bit, but…”

            “Well, at least I wouldn’t have to watch you poke around in my arm. Go ahead.” He sounded so nonchalant, like ‘detaching an arm’ was a perfectly normal thing. Allura doubted he was honestly so cavalier about it; he was good at putting on a brave front.

            _Allura, you can always confide in me if you need to._ She wanted the chance to be able to tell him that he could do the same with her. As a leader himself, he had to feel that same distance she felt. She knew what that was like. She wanted him to know that he didn’t always have to put on that mask of confidence, not around her. He could just be himself with her if he needed to be.

            She was zoning out a little, watching Pidge work on Shiro’s arm, but not really registering what was happening. It was Shiro’s sudden scream that wrenched her back to reality. “Shiro?!”

            Pidge dropped her hands from Shiro’s arm quickly, and he stopped, breathing like he’d been running hard. “I don’t think it wants to be detached,” she reported.

            “Guess not,” he said between harsh breaths. He licked his lips and swallowed hard.

            “Well, just don’t watch what I’m doing then,” Pidge suggested to him, pulling out cords to attach to the arm.

            “That’s really odd though. You’d think it would come off,” Coran mused aloud.

            “I know, right?”

            “The druids did this to me,” Shiro reminded them. “There’s probably more than advanced tech going on here.”

            “Ugh. I hate magic!” Pidge declared. “It’s so… messy!”

            “I hate Galra magic,” Coran put in. “It’s so… Galra!”

            “Work, you two,” Allura reminded them both. She went over to sit on Shiro’s left, so he’d have something else to focus on. “I’m sorry. If we’d known…”

            “You couldn’t have,” he said immediately. “Don’t worry about it.”

            “Well, it’s sort of my job to worry about it. About everything.”

            “I know. We’re going to do everything we can, Princess. We’ll set things right.”

            She smiled. “I know you will. That’s what gives me hope and keeps me fighting.” She patted his shoulder – pulling her hand away before things got awkward again – and added, quieter, “And I just want you to know you can confide in me.”

            “I could be wrong,” Pidge piped up, not taking her eyes from her screen, “but I’m pretty sure Shiro’s not a girl.”

            “WORK,” Allura demanded, but Shiro snorted and then started laughing. And then it was contagious and they were all doing it, except for Pidge who was smirking in triumph at the reaction to her comment.

            “Okay, yes, for the record, I am not a girl,” Shiro informed them all. “But thank you, Allura.”

            “I can’t promise I’ll always understand fully – you’ve been through so much that I could never truly grasp – but I can promise to listen and to be there for you.”

            Shiro nodded and smiled, just a little. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

            Pidge was alternating between her screens and the arm itself. “Man, I’m getting some _really_ strange readings here…” she muttered, and Shiro almost turned back to look, but Allura put a hand on his, and he looked back to her almost instantly. She smiled reassuringly at him, and his smile, which had started to fade at Pidge’s comment, came back.

            “I’m pretty sure this is the panel, if I could just get it to open…” Pidge grumbled.

            “Hey, how’s it going in here?” Hunk asked as he wandered in, sipping from a ‘Capri Sun’ (whatever that meant; Allura and Coran had given up trying to break the Earthlings of the term).

            “Well, we’ve learned that Shiro’s arm doesn’t detach and that he’s not a girl, but other than that…,” Coran told him.

            Hunk blinked a couple of times. “Um, how did that even come up?” He paused and then added quickly, “No, y’know what, never mind, I don’t need or want to know. That’s… let’s just not go there.”

            “I’m trying to get this panel open, but I can’t figure out how,” Pidge told him. “Assuming it _is_ a panel, which I’m mostly sure it is, but I can’t…”

            Hunk came over and banged hard on the panel on the inside of Shiro’s arm, just below the elbow, earning a “HEY!” from pretty much everyone. But the panel popped open as Hunk sipped victoriously from his packet.

            “Hey!” Pidge repeated, much more enthused this time. “Good work, Hunk!” She held her hand up for a high-five – a request Hunk was glad to fulfill – as she peered inside.

            “I am afraid to ask how you do maintenance on your lion,” Allura muttered.

            “Eh, Goldie’s not Galra tech. I wouldn’t do that to her.”

            “Goldie?” Allura asked.

            “Well, y’know, Lance calls his lion ‘Blue’ and Keith calls his ‘Red’, and, those are just colors, not really names. Plus ‘Yellow’ is a bit of a mouthful. I thought ‘Goldie’ sounded cute.” He beamed. “I think it’s really helped us bond, too.”

            Allura smiled. “Hunk, that’s so sweet!”

            “And it’s a lot better than the names Pidge calls _her_ lion whenever she’s working on it.”

            “HEY! I do **not** call my lion those things! I’m frustrated at the parts or the software, not at my lion.”

            “So what _do_ you call your lion?” Coran asked.

            Pidge frowned. “That’s not important.” She readjusted her glasses again – Allura wondered if the adjustments were always necessary – and poked around in the open panel on Shiro’s arm. “Hey, Coran, come take a look at this.” Hunk peered over the top of his drink, since he was there, and Coran hurried over to look, too. Allura’s curiosity got the better of her and she leaned over Shiro to try to get a peek.

            But it was all just machinery to her, glowing purple and pulsing oddly. “What causes that?”

            “I don’t know,” Pidge admitted. “That’s why I was hoping Coran knew.”

            “Probably druid magic,” he said with a shrug.

            “And, see, I was hoping you _wouldn’t_ say that.” Pidge cocked her head a little. “It’s almost like the cables are the arteries and veins and the magic’s the blood.”

            Hunk backed away from Shiro’s arm a little. “Ugh. Does anyone else find that creepy, because I find that super-creepy.”

            There were nods all around at that, even from Shiro. It only then occurred to Allura that he was sitting as far back in the chair as he could manage, probably because she was leaning over him to look at his arm. “Oh, excuse me.” She sat up straight and hoped it was only extreme politeness on his part and not some sort of repulsion.

            “It’s fine,” he told her, but she could see him relax again. _You were raised better than that_ , she chided herself.

            Pidge was back to thinking out loud. “So if it’s mimicking human biology, then that’s probably why we can’t detach it.” Allura watched Shiro pale a bit and swallow hard. “Honestly, I’m not even really sure what I’m looking for.”

            “Start with anything that might be some sort of way to broadcast intel,” Shiro said, still looking a bit sick. “It’s not exactly what we were looking for, but while you’re in there, it’d be good to know if it’s bugged.”

            “It has bugs in it?!” Allura recoiled in horror.

            Pidge shrugged. “Well, I’m still looking, but right now? No, no bugs. Of any kind.” She grinned grimly and resumed poking about.

            Coran straightened. “I’ll be over here working on the data log analysis then. Let me know if you need me.” Pidge nodded. Allura had seen that look on her face before: it meant she was studying a puzzle, and enjoying it.

            She turned to Shiro, but he beat her to the punch. “You should probably go. At least one of us should be able to get some work done while this is going on.”

            “Yes, sorry. I’d stay if I could. And, honestly, this is for the best. It will give your body a bit more time to rest after the ordeal it’s been through.” She stood. “Let me know what you find out.”

            Shiro gave her a polite, “Of course,” but Pidge just nodded again, too distracted to respond with words. Allura smiled her Polite Smile and left them to it.

 

 

            _Patience yields focus_.

            _Patience yields focus._

 _Patience…_ was not something Keith was good at. He grunted and slammed a fist down on one of the control handles. “COME ON, YOU STUPID CAT! HELP ME OUT HERE!”

            There was the sound of a low growling in his mind in response, and he scoffed in annoyance.

            “This is important, Red! C’mon, you’re supposed to have my back!” But thereafter his lion was silent. “Argh, forget it!” He threw himself out of his chair, not even waiting for it to move back. Of course, it _did_ pull back and he almost walked into it. “STUPID. CAT,” he declared. There wasn’t even a growl this time, but Keith got the impression his lion was feeling smug as he stalked out.

 _Time to hit the training room_. He knew he was supposed to be trying to figure out this whole ‘cannon’ thing, and he didn’t want to let Shiro down, but he also knew that right now he wanted to punch, kick, or stab something, and it probably shouldn’t be his lion.

            Until he got the chance to work off his aggression, it was all he could do to keep his temper and annoyance (mostly at himself) in check. So, of course, as soon as he was back in one of the main hallways, he heard a “How’s it goin’?” from absolutely the most annoying guy in the entire universe, complete with near-audible smirk.

 _I will **not** punch a fellow paladin_. _I will **not** punch a fellow paladin_. More importantly, he didn’t want Lance to know about his recent failure to get anything useful out of Red.

            And that was too bad, because Lance read the look on his face and winced. “Ooh, not well, huh? Well, that’s tough, but not everyone can have as awesome a bond with their lion as Blue and I have.”

            “Oh, really.” It sounded less like a question and more like a challenge, though even Keith had no idea what he was challenging Lance to at the moment. It was… habit.

            “Chyeah! Blue and I are pretty much One Being Of Pure Awesome.”

            “Good. You go figure out if Blue has a cannon of its own then,” he suggested, before remembering something. “Hey, weren’t you on cleaning duty today?”

            “Hey Coran’s not lookin’ over my shoulder, and, honestly, you see anything dirty around here?” He gestured around them to the shiny, practically-sterile hallway.

            “Yeah, I guess not. So what _are_ you doing?”

            “Hadn’t decided, but I was leaning towards seeing if I could get my smartphone compatible with Blue’s systems.” Lance grinned. “Fire up the playlist and ROCK!” He settled down a little and his usual smirk died. “And, y’know, I thought it would get my mind off of things.”

            “Yeah, I know what you mean.” And then the best idea he’d ever had occurred to him. “I was going to hit the training deck. You want to come?”

            Lance narrowed his eyes at him. “You want your butt beat that badly? Or do you want to team up so you can try to steal some of my sweet combat skills?”

            “Well, I _had_ been thinking about teaming up, but since you put it that way,” and now it was Keith’s turn to grin, “let’s see who’s getting the beating.”

            “You’re on! Race you there!” And Lance was off like a shot, Keith hot on his tail.

 

 

            Pidge was summarizing her findings. “Well, there’s obviously some data transference equipment, but it’s only short-range. At least, not without hooking you up to some sort of antenna or booster. You don’t have the ability to really broadcast.”

            “That’s good to know,” Shiro said grimly.

            “As for whether or not your arm gave Zarkon any help in breaking your connection to the Black Lion, I just can’t tell. And I _really_ can’t tell if he has a way to tap into your mind through it. But this thing,” she looked up at him, “really is a part of you now, Shiro. I’m sorry.”

            “For what?” he asked quickly, trying to cover how sick that made him feel. Hearing her say it, let alone knowing that it was true... It was like he could feel that evil Galra glow creeping through his veins. “You’re doing a great job, Pidge. I appreciate it. But you should probably get back to data gathering and analysis. Whatever’s going on, we’re way behind the curve on intel, and that has to stop.”

            She nodded and closed the panel on his arm. “I just wish I could be more help, or that there was a way to get it off you or…”

            He reached out to pat her shoulder with his left hand. “Yeah, that’d be nice. But let’s focus on what we _can_ do, okay?” She gave him a tight smile, and he stood. “I’m going to go look over some things in the Black Lion.”

            He headed off to the hangar bay, trying not to think about… about everything. _I should have died_. The thought rose to the surface as he tried to push everything else down. _Keith would be a good leader, at least in battle, and Allura could’ve piloted the Black Lion, and…_ But he hadn’t died, and he wasn’t going to give up now. He had to fight to make it right. However Zarkon had done what he’d done, it was up to Shiro to make sure it _never_ happened again.

 

 

 _Yeaaaaaaaah, okay, this was a mistake_. Not that he’d _ever_ say that out loud.

            What Lance had forgotten in his rush to take on Keith was that his fellow paladin was stupidly obsessed with fighting. It was like all he did in his spare time, near as Lance could tell. Of course, Lance had better things to do with his time than think about Keith. He almost never paid him any attention at all, really. Mullet almost never crossed his mind.

            At least not more than half a dozen times a day.

            Lance was making great use of Mr. Miyagi’s “No Be There” technique, but there was only so long that could last. The few punches and kicks he’d tried had either met only air or had been blocked by the psycho pilot over there, and that usually left him open to counter-attack.

            At first, Lance had been pretty stoked to hear Keith suggest that they shouldn’t use their bayards. He’d teased him about being scared and then gallantly declared he didn’t need his rifle to beat him. But he hadn’t taken that thought train all the way to the station, clearly, because Keith was a damn good hand-to-hand fighter. If he weren’t, well, _KEITH_ , Lance would’ve been asking for lessons.

            Because even if he didn’t want to admit it (and he really, really, REALLY didn’t want to admit it), Keith was capable of some truly awesome moves. If he’d been watching this fight in a movie, he’d totally be rooting for Keith to thrash that bozo senseless. Except this wasn’t a movie and _he was the bozo._

            “You ready to give up yet?” Keith asked with a wickedly cool half-grin.

            “Ha! I should be asking you that!” He had to back up a couple steps to avoid the fist that was coming for his nose.

            “Are you even paying attention to this fight?”

            “It’s just going to be that much more AMAZING when I win,” Lance assured him, jumping backwards again from a kick aimed at his midsection. He tried to dart forward for a punch, but Keith was too fast with his own fists, and Lance had to back off before even getting to throw it.

            Lance pulled his head back as an elbow strike barely missed him. “Hey, not the face!”

            “Why not? You take so much _pride_ in it; it’s your obvious weak spot.”

            “Hey, ladies like it when a man takes care of himself!” He blocked a punch with his forearm and almost immediately regretted it; last time he’d done that, Keith had grabbed hold and yanked Lance like a rag doll, going for a midsection punch that he wasn’t entirely sure Keith had bothered pulling.

            But this time, Keith didn’t go for the grab; he just tried another punch from the other side. Lance backed away from it, not willing to tempt fate twice. “Do they?” Keith asked. “I don’t really see it working so far.”

            “Eh, Pidge isn’t really a lady; she’s one of the guys pretty much. GYAH!” he jumped as Keith dropped for an attempted leg sweep.

            And, of course, he was back on his feet in almost no time. “And Allura?” Another incoming punch.

            Duck. “I’m taking things slow with her, that’s all.”

            “Yeah huh.” Punch. “That your idea or hers?”

            Dodge. “Hey, she’ll succumb to my manly charms any day now, just you wait and see!”

            “Yeah, sure.”

            “You doubt me?!” Lance jumped back from a kick.

            “Pretty much all the time,” Keith confirmed. And then a one-two combo was coming at Lance, and banter time was OVER because it was now officially ‘Protect My Gorgeous Face’ o’clock.

            And then Lance’s back hit the wall. No _wonder_ the little sneak had been going easier on him! He was driving him back to pin him!

            Keith smirked at Lance and swept in for the ‘kill’. Out of desperation – because Lance knew that if he went down easy he’d never, ever, EVER hear the end of this – he did something a bit unsporting: as Keith came in close, Lance reached around with his long arms, grabbed tight hold of the Infamous Mullet at the nape of Keith’s neck, and yanked. “Yie-EE!” Keith’s demand was cut off as his head was pulled back and he came to a dead stop less than half a step from Lance.

            Lance grinned, triumphant gaze taking in his defeated foe. Keith’s head was tilted up towards his, eyes locked hotly on his own. Keith’s chest – well-sculpted from long hours of training – rose and fell hard under the tight t-shirt he wore. He licked his dry lips and Lance’s eyes couldn’t help darting to the action. Then they looked back to Keith’s eyes, expecting defiance, but finding…

 _No way_. Lance blinked in surprise and it was like a spell was broken. Keith tried to spin out of the hair grab and Lance just let the mullet go, black strands slipping through his fingers and taking his victory with them. “That’s enough for today,” Keith said, still breathing hard. “We should hit the showers.”

            “Uh… right. Showers.”

            Keith took a few steps back, furrowing his brow and shaking his head. It looked like he was going to say something, but instead he turned and headed out, scooping up his jacket from the floor where he’d tossed it. Lance watched him go and then stayed there against the wall, trying to figure out what the quiznak had just happened.

 

 

            The eyes. The horrible, glowing eyes. Yellow – not like the proud gold of the Yellow Lion, but jaundiced and corrupt and evil – they spoke of horrible, horrible things and sometimes they were his own eyes and he should hate that but it was the only light in all the darkness aside from the warped candescence of his hand, casting dancing shadows in the dark that shouldn’t be possible – but it was somehow – and the shadows were alive and they were him and they were Matt and the commander and there was so much blood so red in the black so red splashed on white on blue on green and yellow and there was a laugh that demented twisted laugh of that _WITCH_ only now it wasn’t hers it was _HIS OWN_ and there was a scream…

            “Shiro! Shiro!”

            He was sitting up in bed, scraping for breath, throat raw and scratchy. His eyes were adjusting back to the darkness and he was in his bunk in the Castle. He became aware that he wasn’t alone and let his eyes drift slowly to his left, afraid of what he’d see, because what if this was still the dream?

            It was Allura, in her robe and nightgown, bent over with a hand on his shoulder. He looked around but they were the only ones in there. He was still catching his breath.

            The door hissed open and his head whipped in that direction, but it was just Keith. “Is he okay?”

            “I hope so,” Allura told him. “I’ll stay with him. Go back to sleep.”

            Keith glanced between the two of them, then ducked out without another word. Allura sat on the edge of Shiro’s bunk and reached over to rub his back. Shiro closed his eyes and hung his head and tried to just focus on her touch because it was the only thing that felt _real_ to him right now and he badly needed this to be the reality. He needed to know he wouldn’t wake up back in a Galra prison cell.

            “I’m sorry.” It came out harsh and he cleared his throat.

            “You don’t have to be sorry.”

            “My screaming must’ve woken you.”

            “Shiro, my room is not near yours. I was already up. You didn’t wake me.”

            Reality was drifting back into the edges of his mind again. “Oh, yeah, I…” He lifted his head to look at her. “Then what were you doing over in this part of the Castle?”

            “You don’t need to worry about that,” she said immediately.

            “Allura.”

            “You don’t,” she told him definitively. He dropped it; he felt too strung-out right now to fight. They’d already had the one fight earlier, and in front of everyone, which was less than ideal. Her voice was softer as she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

            “No. Ye- …no. I dunno.” He squeezed his eyes shut, but it seemed like that evil witch’s glowing gaze was waiting for him there, and he retreated to the real world and Allura’s patient back rubs.

            “Does this happen often?”

            “No. Sometimes, but…” He rubbed his sore throat with his left hand. “Not usually this bad.”

            “I wish you’d said something sooner.”

            “This is my battle, and you have enough on your plate.”

            “You can’t fight all your battles alone, and, even if I didn’t want to, it’s part of my job to help you. And I _do_ want to help you, Shiro.”

            “I don’t know how anyone could help me with this.”

            “I can stay here with you while you try to get some sleep?”

            “You don’t have to do that.”

            “I know I don’t _have_ to, but I want to. Let me help you.”

            “You should be getting your own sleep.”

            “Shiro.” She was sounding annoyed. “I have made the offer. Do you wish to accept it or not?”

            He didn’t want to risk her wrath and… and he did want her to stay. “Yes, thank you. I appreciate it.”

            She smiled faintly. “I’ll bring a chair in. You lay down and try to get comfy.” She stood and her hand slid away from his skin. He was drenched in sweat, but the warmth of her touch had still felt so good to him. It was almost cold now where her hand had been, and he laid back down despite not really wanting to yet, just to try to banish the chill.

            He heard the door open and shut, and he stared upwards and tried not to think. His mind was still a jumble of images and feelings, mostly fear and anger and betrayal. He wanted his throat to stop hurting. He wanted his skin to dry. He wanted to be able to sleep quickly and well, so Allura wouldn’t have to sit up with him all night. He wanted peace.

            The soft whirr of the door again, open and shut, and a chair came into his peripheral view. Allura seated herself elegantly – she did everything elegantly; she even threw food goo elegantly! – and patted his arm. “I’m right here if you need me.”

            “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll try not to keep you too long, but I can’t promise anything.”

            “Don’t you worry about that. Just try to relax and rest. You’re safe here.” She moved her hands down to his own – _his own_ hand, not the Galra replacement – and gave a quick squeeze. “You’re safe.”

            His eyelids were heavy but he fought to keep them open, afraid of what he’d see when they closed, but when he gave in, there was only darkness: not the unforgiving pitch that oozed around him, suffocating and swallowing him, but the comfortable, familiar darkness of any normal night. He could feel Allura practically radiating reassurance next to him, her hands around his, and he wanted to drop off to sleep so badly.

            And then the darkness began to boil and bubble and there was the roar of the crowd thick in his ears, their cheers pounding through his blood, and he was victorious yet again and even though he hated being forced to be part of this bloodsport against either monsters or other captive souls, part of him _thrilled_ to have defeated such an opponent. He loved it, didn’t he? He loved killing them, when they were the monsters the druids concocted. He was bathed in the adulation of the bloodthirsty mob around him, and it was _fantastic_.

            And though he was bleeding, he didn’t care. The more he bled, the more his remaining blood sang when he won out. And his blood was the boiling black of the darkness, until it began to glow purple and it wasn’t boiling, it was _pumping_ up along his arm, through his shoulder, across his chest and into his heart, which slowly faded from vibrant red into sickly purple, but glowing strong, stronger, the light expanding throughout him until he thought he’d explode because he couldn’t contain it, the power, _the raw power_ within him and such things he could do with it, such horrors he could happily unleash, let them come, because he would tear apart anything, ANYONE who stood in his path!

            He sliced and slashed and punched his way through one monster and another, and each one that fell was one more throat-rending cheer from the crowd, but then there was one at the end, smaller, paler, who died with a “GURK!” instead of a roar, and when he turned back it was Matt, slit in two across his torso, organs spilling out, blood staining the arena floor.

            “No.”

            The blood was flowing towards his feet and he stepped away, but his eyes were locked on Matt’s who was looking up at him in confused betrayal.

            “NO.”

            The blood was on him, **MATT’S** BLOOD was on him, climbing up his legs, eating through the cloth to stain his skin, his muscles, eating into his very soul.

            “NO!”

            “SHIRO!” And he was awake and upright again, Allura’s hands on either side of him: one on his chest, one on his back as he heaved in horror and tried to claw reality back in around him. “Shiro, it’s okay. You’re okay. The nightmare’s over, and I’m here, and you’re safe. Do you hear me?”

            He nodded. He didn’t trust himself to talk. He didn’t know what he could say. He wanted to apologize to Katie but she wasn’t here, no, but Pidge was, but that was Katie, but she wasn’t here now, there was only himself and Allura and he wanted to pull away from her, to protect her from himself. The thought of Matt’s blood on him was horrifying; the thought of hurting Allura... it made him ache.

            “You’re okay now.” She tried to hug him and he did jerk away, without meaning to. She backed off and dropped her hand from his chest, but kept rubbing his back. He wanted to apologize, to ask her to hug him, to lay on her shoulder and cry. But even in the just-awake unreality he was still floating in, he knew that was too much. It was too personal, too close, and she had so much weight on her already. So much weight. Would he be one more thing she’d have to carry? What if she drowned with all that weight on her? She was strong, _so_ strong, but everyone had their limits.

            Everyone.

            “If… if you’re willing to try it, I have something that might help.”

            He couldn’t speak yet. He turned his head and looked at her wearily.

            “As you may have noticed, Alteans have the ability to project some of our quintessence. Granted, you’re not a Balmera, but this energy _is_ restorative, to a degree, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for you. Perhaps it would soothe you enough to help you sleep. It might heal up your throat some, if nothing else?”

            He was too tired to argue. He nodded. She pulled her hand away from his back and he almost immediately wanted to change his mind as the cold returned, but his throat hurt too much and he just wanted to sleep without dreaming ever, ever, ever again.

            “Lay down,” and he did so mechanically, looking straight up. He felt like one of those wind-up toy soldiers in some of the older stories and his spring was wound down. He couldn’t afford to be this weak, not when the team and the entire universe were depending on him. But he felt like it was all out of his control now.

            “Close your eyes.” And he did so. Just following orders.

            And then she pressed her hand to his chest, and there was a warmth and a light and it _sang_ through him like a lullaby. It was gentle, with a fragrance he’d never smelled before but that felt like _home_ , a home he’d never have again, but it was here now and it was his, just for him, and it felt and smelled and sounded like her. “Allura,” he exhaled softly, before floating off.

            He awoke a few more times that night, and each time Allura would be there, and she would press him back down against his bunk with one hand, and it would start to glow faintly blue, and he would be asleep in no time, and the nightmares had to fight and claw to catch hold of him again each time. They found a way, but the intervals between nightmares grew longer.

            And when he finally awoke without terror, Allura was slumped forward in her chair, head resting on his chest. He felt guilty and grateful in equal measure, and wished he could repay her with some of his own energy somehow, but he was a mere human ( _if even that anymore_ , he couldn’t help thinking as a twitch of his right arm buzzed mechanically). He closed his eyes again and fell back asleep. There were no more nightmares, only pleasant dreams, and when he awoke again, she was gone.

 

 

            “Sir! We may have something!”

            Station Commander Kelom turned towards the soldier. “Bring it up on the main screen.” When he turned back, there it was: “The Castle of Lions,” he said with slow satisfaction. “Hail Central Command immediately.”

            “Sir!”

            And, after a few moments of feeling very proud of himself, Kelom was greeted by the face of the emperor himself. “Emperor Zarkon, we have discovered the Altean ship!”

            “Excellent, commander. You have received the druids’ shipment?”

            “Received, installed, and ready, my lord. It awaits your command.”

            “You know what to do, commander. Proceed with the plan. You and your men are doing the Galra Empire proud.” And the feed cut out. Kelom’s chest swelled – praise from the Emperor himself! This was a day he would never forget.

            “You heard Emperor Zarkon, men!”

 

            Coran glanced back at Allura as she groaned and cricked her neck. “You should’ve gone back to bed,” he said quietly, even though they were the only ones on the bridge.

            “Yes, yes, you’ve only said so about a dozen times. Do you think I don’t know that? But how could I just abandon him when he was in so much pain?”

            “Allura, you’re a very caring leader, and your father would be proud of you for that, but you’ve got to look after yourself as well. You...” And then the Castle’s systems started pinging an alarm. Coran whipped back to his control panels. “Distress beacon!”

            “Bring it up,” Allura said.

            He punched it up on the main screen, describing as the image came up, “Looks like a Thermian space station,” he said. “Power problems, I think? Its power signatures are fluctuating.”

            “Can we hail them? I’d rather not go in blind again, but we also can’t turn our back on someone in genuine need.”

            “Attempting to hail. Thermian space station, we have received your distress signal. Do you read?”

            “You didn’t identify us,” Allura protested.

            “I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, Princess. We don’t know who we can trust anymore.”

            She was cut off by an audio-only response from the station. It broke in and out, the sound obscured by static and occasionally warped by interference. “Hailing ship, we… …need hel-… core unit malf-… … …weapons systems offli-… …defenseless… …power draini-… Help.”

            “What’s going on?” Keith asked as he ran onto the bridge.

            “Distress beacon from the station up ahead,” Coran told him. “Seems their power unit is malfunctioning.”

            The other paladins were coming in behind him. “Are we sure going in to help them is a good idea?” Keith asked.

            “Yeah, remember what happened last time?” Hunk pointed out. “That shifty Rolo guy…” The assembled paladins groaned. Coran noticed Shiro was only just now arriving.

            “What’s the situation?” he asked. Coran wished they’d all show up at once so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself.

            “That Thermian space station up ahead is having power core troubles. They say their weapons system is offline and they’re defenseless,” he reported.

            “If their power supply goes down entirely, what will happen?” Pidge asked.

            “Well, they’d lose the use of all their systems: weapons, shields, gravity, food dispensing…”

            “Not the food!” Hunk exclaimed.

            “…to say nothing of temperature regulation and life support,” Coran finished.

            “Soooo, basically: no power, no life,” Pidge summarized.

            “Yes, in short, that’s an excellent summary!”

            “We have to help all those in need,” Allura reminded them all. “But we can be careful about it. We’ll stay back here, in case cover fire or retreat is needed.”

            Shiro nodded. “Okay, here’s the deal: I want all of us in our lions. Pidge and Hunk, you two fly in, board, handle their engineering problems if that’s really what’s going on. The rest of us will be on standby, ready to launch at the first sign of any trouble. And no needless heroics; if there’s a trap in there, report it immediately and do what you can to get back out and back to your lions.”

            “Yeah, we can’t blow them sky high if you’re still on board!” Lance pointed out.

            “Uh, there _is_ no sky here,” Keith informed him.

            “It’s an EXPRESSION.”

            “To. The. Lions,” Shiro demanded. There was a chorus of “Yes, sir!”s or some variant thereof, and they ran off. Shiro hung back a moment. “Thank you for your help, Princess. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

            She smiled wearily at him. “Don’t be. I was glad to help. Go on; we have people to save.”

            “Aye.” And he ran off, already pulling his helmet on.

            “Well, at least he’s polite enough to thank you for it. Least he could do after the sore back and neck you got yourself,” Coran sniffed.

            “Oh, honestly, stop being such a nanny,” she told him. “We have more important things to do right now.”

            They watched as the Green and Yellow Lions launched and flew over to the station. “Thermian station, we’re coming in to assist you,” Pidge broadcast. And then the station suddenly stopped fluctuating, all power coming back on bright and strong.

            “Huh,” Hunk said over the comms as they approached the station, “guess we’re not needed after all. Y’know, sometimes that happens, like it gets a bit glitchy for a second and then as soon as you call someone to come look at it, it just BAM! y’know, it fixes itself, and…”

            “LOOK OUT!” Coran yelled, having spotted the weapons charging up too late. Twin laser blasts sped out towards the lions, who dodged them just in the tick of time.

            “Paladins!” Allura ordered, but she needn’t have bothered; they were already charging out of their hangars and into trouble, like they always did. That was both the great thing about paladins and the monumentally frustrating thing about them as well. Coran really, really, _really_ hoped they wouldn’t have to be putting the cryo-replenishers to use again this soon.

            Coran already had the Castle’s shields up as Shiro’s voice ordered, “Let’s get them out of there, team!”

            “Yeah, and let’s show them what happens when they mess with TEAM VOLTRON!” Lance yelled.

            “Lance, Keith, take out the guns. Careful with your aim.”

            “Careful?” Lance asked. “They just tried to kill Pidge and Hunk!”

            “STILL TRYING!” Pidge pointed out, diving out of the way of another laser blast.

            “Yes, it was a trap, but we are _not_ the Galra; we don’t kill just because we can. Let’s leave them their power but not their weapons.”

            “Yes, sir!” That was Keith, of course. Shiro was the only one he obeyed so well.

            The Red and Blue Lions swooped off towards the laser guns, one mounted on each side of the station. “Pidge, Hunk, let’s get you two back to the Cas-…”

            “INCOMING!” Coran yelled over the link.

            “Paladins, watch your backs!” Allura put in. Because there were now squads of smaller Galra fighter ships coming out to swarm them.

            “Oh, I KNEW IT!” Lance exclaimed.

            “Are we sure we have to stop and try to help every time we get a beacon? ‘Cause we’re two for two of this turning out bad,” Hunk pointed out.

            “Let’s give the boys some cover,” Shiro told Pidge and Hunk, and they dove off after the smaller targets.

            “Ugh, they’re everywhere,” Pidge complained, even as she took out three of them. “Like gnats!”

            “There’s a lot of them, but we can handle it. Keep your cool.”

            Keith melted one of the guns into a useless hunk of metal. “Let’s get out of here.”

            “Hey, hey, I’m getting hit?” Hunk said.

            “You okay?” Shiro asked. Even Coran thought Hunk’s tone was strange.

            “Yeah, yeah, that’s just it; I’m fine. Like, I can feel the hit land, but… no alarms, no system damage. Are these guys really that weak?”

            “HA!” That was Lance as he froze the other gun and then gave it a tail blast that shattered it into sparkling dust. “What losers!”

            “Maybe that’s why they had to lure us in first?” Pidge guessed as her lion crunched another fighter in its jaws. “If they’re this bad up close, imagine how bad they’d be at a distance.”

            “Incoming transmission!” Coran declared as the face of a Galra commander came up on screen.

            “Surrender the lions now and you might have a chance of living,” he told them.

            “Wow, someone’s severely out of touch with reality,” Lance muttered.

            “ _We_ should be asking for _your_ surrender,” Allura informed him. It was moments like these that she reminded Coran most of her father. It made him both proud and more than a little homesick. “Your gambit has failed, your station is now _truly_ defenseless, and your fighters are no match for the Lions of Voltron. Call the fighters back and surrender, so there need be no more useless bloodshed.”

            “HA! I am a soldier of the Galra Empire! I know only victory or death!” The transmission cut out as the station started shaking a little.

            “Coran, what is that?” Hunk asked as the doors to what looked like a massive hangar began to open on the station.

            “Ion cannon! And a big one, at that!” he told them.

            “Hey, it’s not the size that counts…”

            “LANCE,” the other four paladins said together.

            “Well, we know what to do about that,” Shiro said.

            “Yeah!” they responded.

            “Form Voltron, right?” Hunk verified.

            “…yes, Hunk,” Shiro replied. “Form Voltron!”

            And there was a long pause. The ion cannon began to charge.

            “Divert all shields to the bow!” Allura demanded, but Coran was already doing it. “Paladins? Why aren’t you forming Voltron?”

            “Shiro, you okay?” Keith asked.

            “Yeah, I’m fine. I… it’s not working.”

            “What’s not working?” Pidge asked. “Your lion?”

            “No, the lion works, but it’s…”

            “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Allura screamed into the comm link.

            The lions scattered just before the cannon fired, and the Castle’s shields took the brunt of the blow.

            “We’ll figure it out later!” Keith yelled, swooping in and firing a flame blast at the cannon. Lance was right behind him, freezing the side that wasn’t being fried, and Pidge and Hunk attacked, too.

            “Shiro?” Allura asked.

            “I. Don’t. KNOW,” he gritted out between his teeth. Coran glanced between the screens and the princess.

            “Look, just get in there and see what damage you can do,” he advised Shiro.

            “Right.” The Black Lion activated its jaw blades and dove into the fray, slicing along the cannon’s barrel.

            “They’re charging the cannon up again!” Coran warned. “Get out of there!”

            “They can’t target us when we’re behind or next to it, can they?” Hunk asked.

            “It’s taken too much damage! It’ll explode if they try to fire it.”

            “WHAT?!” Pidge shrieked. “Are they crazy?!”

            “Suicide strike,” Shiro said grimly. “RUN!”

            The lions fled and Coran was putting as much power as he could into the Castle shields. The cannon started to glow purple then white hot before it exploded. The blast wave knocked the lions and even the Castle backwards, and Coran and Allura were both thrown to the floor.

            “Report,” Shiro ordered.

            “Red okay.”

            “Blue and I are fine.”

            “Green okay.”

            “Owwwwie. But okay.”

            “We’re- we’re okay here,” Coran said as he pulled himself back up. “Bit knocked about, but in one piece. The shields took quite the beating, but so long as we don’t get attacked again anytime soon, we’ll be fine.”

            “We’re coming in,” Shiro told him, and the lions righted themselves and flew back towards their hangars.

            “Was that the point all along?” Allura asked as she regained her feet, staring at the floating debris that had once been a space station. “So many lives destroyed, and for what?”

            “That’s how badly the Galra want…” he began to say.

            But she interrupted him. “No. No, Zarkon wants to capture the lions, not destroy them. This was… this was so senseless. So many lives lost, and even if they were the enemy, it’s still not right. This is how little Zarkon cares for the lives of those around him.”

            “They’re so loyal to him they’ll destroy themselves,” Coran sighed. “Maybe that’s meant as a message to us.”

            “Maybe they went rogue,” Keith said.

            “Yeah, you’d know a lot about that, wouldn’t you?”

            “Shut up, Lance! I’m just saying maybe Zarkon didn’t order them to do this. Maybe they thought they were _supposed_ to destroy the lions?”

            “Still, that level of dedication is… unnerving,” Pidge put in. “They sprang a trap on us and used their own fighters to keep us around long enough to get the ion cannon into play. That’s why it didn’t matter if the fighters were underpowered.”

            “They were deliberately going easy on us to get us to lower our guard. Get us in close and then blow the cannon.” Shiro didn’t sound happy, but then none of them did. “Everyone in?”

            Everyone reported in and the Castle systems confirmed their safe return, so Coran guided the ship away. Allura murmured something about needing a nap. Ever since he’d pulled her out of Shiro’s room, she’d been drowsy, sleep-deprived, and sore from the awkward position. Now, with this, he couldn’t blame her for wanting to escape from the real world for a while. He let her leave without a word of protest.

 

 

            “Haggar, did they succeed?” Zarkon asked his chief druid.

            She was kneeling in the center of her focusing circle, the hovering crystals of quintessence scintillating around her. “Yes. There is no escape for the princess and those would-be paladins now.” She looked up at him. “Everything is going according to plan.”

            “Perfect.”

 

           

            “This is _not_ good.”

            “Gee, Hunk, you think?” Lance scoffed. “How long has he been in there?”

            “One hour, twenty-seven minutes, and fifty-two seconds,” Pidge reported, looking at her phone’s timer. They were standing around just inside the Black Lion’s hangar bay. Shiro had yet to leave his lion.

            “Something’s really wrong,” Keith said. “He was screaming last night.”

            “He does that a lot,” Pidge commented.

            “Really?” asked Hunk and Lance together. Between Hunk’s deep sleeping (and heavy snoring) and Lance’s tendency to wear headphones to bed, it was no surprise they hadn’t heard.

            “Not this bad,” Keith reported. “Allura had to calm him down.”

            Pidge’s eyebrows went up. “What was she even doing there?”

            “No idea, but she was in there before I got to him, even.” Pidge started to smirk and Keith hit her in the shoulder, though it wasn’t much more than a glancing blow. On one hand, she ought to be annoyed that he was pulling his punches with her. On the other, she’d seen him punch a time or two, and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to be on the end of a full-strength one anyway. “Knock it off. They weren’t doing _that_.”

            Punch or no punch, she wasn’t done smirking just yet. “Not yet, maybe.”

            “Whoa, whoa,” Lance broke in, “are you two saying what I _think_ you’re saying?”

            “What I’m Saying,” Keith said, trying (and failing) to keep the annoyance out of his voice, “is that Shiro’s in some sort of trouble, I think. And he won’t tell us about it.”

            “I wonder if it has to do with his arm?” Pidge mused.

            “Dude, if that’s not giving him trouble, then he’s not even human anymore,” Hunk affirmed. “Inside his arm it’s all creepy, pulsing Galra energy.”

            “And it’s attached to him,” Pidge said. “Like _attached_ attached. It looked to me like it feeds directly into him, and when we tried to get it off, he screamed like we were… well, trying to take his arm off.” She could still hear him scream when she thought back to it. She frowned worriedly up at the Black Lion.

            “Yeaaah, that’s not good,” Hunk said.

            “You don’t think he’s… turning _into_ a Galra or something?” Lance asked in a wide-eyed whisper.

            “Never,” Keith declared. “But something like that has got to be messing with him. No wonder the nightmares were so bad last night.”

            “And the whole reason we were checking his arm out in the first place was that he thought it might be messing with his connection to his lion.” Because she might as well catch them all up, since they were all here. “Since it’s Galra tech and all, he thought maybe it was interfering. But I can’t tell. I do science, not magic.”

            “Maybe he’s right though?” Hunk asked. “I mean, when we tried to form Voltron…”

            There was a hiss and a whirr and the lion’s head began to lower. Pidge watched carefully. As Shiro finally emerged, she hit the timer button: one hour, twenty-nine minutes, fiften seconds.

            “C’mon, guys, let’s let him have some time,” Keith said, and he began pushing Pidge ahead of him towards the hangar doors even as Shiro walked towards them.

            Pidge squirmed away from him. “I can walk on my own, thanks.” The doors were already opening for Hunk as he headed out. Lance was still standing around and looked like he might try to say something, right up until Keith grabbed his arm and hauled. Lance stumbled and practically bounced off of Keith, and the sudden bloom of red on both of their faces made Pidge sit up and take notice (except not literally because, y’know, she was _standing_ , not sitting). Lance trotted out of the hangar muttering about ‘space juice’, and Keith gave her a stern look as he walked past her.

            Pidge cast a long look back at Shiro walking towards her. He was looking at the floor, or maybe more like _through_ the floor: his gaze was distant and he was hunched in somewhat. His helmet was tucked under his left arm instead of his right. She wanted to say something, to try to make it better, but that just wasn’t her strong suit. She jogged off to catch up with Keith rather than stick around and see if Shiro would actually walk into her if she didn’t move, as she suspected he might.

            Shiro was their leader. Somehow he always knew what to do. Okay, not always, but a lot of the time, and even when he didn’t know what to do, he was the source of their confidence that they would pull through so long as they stuck together. But it seemed to her like Shiro was fracturing, and it bothered Pidge more than she’d thought it would. Well, it would’ve bothered her anyway, but Shiro was, all else aside, the last link to her father and brother. He had become a lot like a surrogate big brother to her out here, and she hated to see him in pain. There was nothing she could do about it.

            The only thing she thought she could possibly do was tell Allura. Even if Keith hadn’t wanted to get into it, it didn’t take a genius of her level to tell there was something going on between the Princess and the Black Paladin. (Heck, emotional cues weren’t typically where her genius lay in the first place, but it was so _obvious_ sometimes that even she could pick it up.) But Pidge also knew that Allura was napping, and if she’d been up all night with Shiro – _that_ way or not – then she probably shouldn’t be bothered just now.

            Pidge hated feeling helpless. But, right now at least, there was nothing else for it. She decided to go back to data analysis.

            What neither she nor any other pilot noticed was a dark smudge of what might’ve been grease on the Black Lion’s rear leg. It was twitching, thrashing… and growing.

 

 

            It wasn’t that he didn’t like Allura. She was great, he respected her, and, he admitted, she was beautiful. She was like the alien version of every fairy tale princess ever, except she kicked _a lot more_ butt. Keith had never had much use for fairy tales though.

            And every time Lance said her name, he got annoyed. At first, this was just because it was Lance. And then it had shifted to wondering if Lance were willfully blind or just stupid, because there was a lot more than “rapport” building between Shiro and Allura. Shiro was Keith’s friend, his mentor back at the Garrison, the only one who’d taken the time to get to know him and bring him around rather than yell and punish. Keith wanted Shiro to be happy and he was not going to let Lance get in the way of that. But now…

            _That fight. That **stupid** fight_. It had gone right as planned, right up until Lance grabbed his hair. And his first thought had been, _I should’ve expected that_. A seasoned fighter knew that the body followed the head. Lance didn’t seem much of a seasoned fighter – at least, not compared to Keith himself – but even someone without much training would go for a hair pull, not out of strategy but out of desperation. _I got overconfident_. And the surprise had kept him from striking the winning blow.

            Except it hadn’t been the surprise of the hair grab that had really done that. He could’ve gotten out of it: he knew a dozen different ways, and he could still have won. He’d been so close! He could’ve done a throat strike; that would’ve shut Lance up AND forced him to loosen his grip. Two birds, one stone!

            But he’d been _so close_ to Lance, and there’d been a thought that had floated through his brain, head pulled back like that, looking up at Lance smirking. He’d thought, _What would I do if he kissed me right now?_ and THAT had been the surprise that had kept him from winning. He wanted to chalk it up to an intrusive thought, laugh it off, but none of that had worked. He didn’t believe it when he tried to convince himself it was nothing. His constant irritation at Lance trying to put the moves on Allura was further proof that this was ‘something.’

            “Why HIM?” he asked Red’s cockpit. For lack of anything better to do (and to stay as far away from Lance as possible), he’d returned to his attempts to figure out how he’d suddenly gotten Red to sprout a cannon from its back. At least, that was his excuse. “Why, of all people, _HIM_?!” Red, of course, was silent.

            _It’s probably just cause we’re the only ones out here_. Keith respected Hunk and Pidge (and, Hunk’s protestations aside, he was still half-convinced Hunk might’ve gotten a little sweet on Shay); he thought of them as teammates and friends. He sure as hell wasn’t going after Shiro or Allura, and Coran was just… no. So that left Lance, and they were far from Earth, so there wasn’t a whole lot of competition out here. _I’m not going to do something stupid just because there aren’t any better options_.

            Red seemed to react to that in Keith’s mind. It didn’t speak in words, but the feeling Keith got was something along the lines of _There are better reasons to do something stupid_. Keith snorted. Eh, stupid was a matter of viewpoint anyway. Keith did a lot of things others (like Coran) called “stupid,” but to him, they were the only option.

            Because, seriously, how could he not take a chance at wiping Zarkon out? How could he not even TRY? That was the endgame, wasn’t it? That was what they were going for here! And, in the end, they’d gotten a lot of good out of it. Well, some good. They’d gotten intel at least. And Red had gotten a sweet cannon out of nowhere.

            Red seemed to resent the ‘out of nowhere’ idea. _Well, then, help me out, buddy._ The lion fell silent. _See, that’s not_ _helping._ But then Keith felt something weird. It was like a flicker inside him, as if he had a candle in his mind and a draft had come in, causing the flame to gutter. He wasn’t sure what was causing that, but he was sure he didn’t like it.

 

 

            “Oh great, not him, too,” Hunk sighed as he brought up the screen for Coran. He’d been working on improving the Castle’s locator systems with improved BLIP tech, and now they could pinpoint exactly where everyone was instead of just “aboard” or “in this general area.”

            Allura was in her room, Shiro was on the training deck, Lance was in the kitchen (Hunk wasn’t sure he liked him there; the whole “food goo ambush” aside, he was rather protective of the place), and, of course, he was on the bridge with Coran and Pidge. But Keith was in his hangar bay – and, specifically, in his lion.

            “He’s probably still trying to figure out the cannon,” Pidge told him from her panel.

            “Yeah, man, I hope so. It’s just… I thought everything would be okay again when Shiro got better, y’know? Like, not ‘okay’ okay ‘cause there’s still Zarkon out there and all that, but like _we’d_ be okay and it’d go back to normal. But it’s all gotten worse.”

            Coran gave him a pat on the back. “Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Like, well, our fight with Zarkon. It’s going to be a long, hard battle – or series of battles, most likely – but we’ll be setting everything right again by the end of it.”

            “Okay, sure, but…” Hunk looked up at the map and everyone’s dots. “I don’t like fighting, but at least you kind of know where you are with it. We’re winning, we’re losing, whatever. I’m not really sure if we’re all doing okay right now or not. I… kind of think we’re not. And that’s a threat to everything we’re trying to do here. It’s a threat to the whole universe, really, ‘cause we’re the only ones who can stop Zarkon from continuing to enslave and hurt people.” He frowned down at the main control panel. “I just want everything to be okay.”

            “I know what you mean,” Pidge said. Her screen vanished as she leaned back in her chair. “I wish people were as easy to understand as Coresec-One programs.”

            “Oh, totally!” Hunk said, unable to stop himself smiling. “And as easy to fix as a ruptured containment valve.”

            “It’d be lovely if you could just swap out parts, reboot a system, and call it a day,” Coran agreed.

            “I mean, I get _some_ things,” Pidge said, “but most of the time a lot of things go over my head, and I _hate_ that.”

            “You’re young yet, Number Five,” Coran informed her. “As you get more experience in life, you’ll understand a lot more.”

            “Okay, first of all, can we _not_ call me ‘Number Five’? And second… I hope you’re right.”

            “And, y’know, it’ll get better as we get more used to each other, too,” Hunk added. “That’ll help. We’re doing good on that, right? Mostly good.” He frowned. “Well, we were, anyway.”

            “We’re letting secrets come between us again,” Pidge pointed out. “It’s no wonder we couldn’t form Voltron.”

            “I dunno. Goldie and I were ready to go. But without Shiro, there’s nothing to connect my lion _to_. Can’t form Voltron without the head. And torso.”

            “I think that’s the worst part. Shiro’s pushing us away, and he was always what was holding us together. I mean, we’ve all gotten to be friends, and I’d do anything for you guys -”

            “Aww, thanks, Pidge! I feel the same way!”

            “- but it’s a little disorienting when the one guy who was always telling us we could do it is suddenly not even really talking to us anymore,” she finished.

            Hunk pouted. “Yeah, yeah. Look, we should get back to work. I’m going to try to improve the food dispensers. And you’ve got the intel to dig through.”

            “Yeah.” She brought her screen back up. “So far it’s mostly just requisitions and shipment transfer notices. Looks like station C-5-7-H is using lots of toilet paper.” She rolled her eyes. “But I’ll find what we need.”

            “I know you will, Pidge. You’re awesome.” She beamed at him and he felt a little better ‘cause genuine smiles were starting to get really rare around here. These guys were all he had, and Hunk was going to do everything he could to help, starting with some food upgrades, if at all possible. Good food comforted. Good food made everything alright. And good working systems made everything run smoother. Everyone wins. He smiled at Coran and trotted off back towards the kitchens.

 

 

            Shiro grunted as his opponent’s strike connected, but he punched straight through the training drone, spraying cables and parts out the back before it disappeared. He held his right hand up and watched the glow die as he caught his breath. “End training sequence.” The drones that were coming to attack him stopped and _fzz!_ ed back out of existence. He picked up his shirt and headed for the showers.

            Shiro stopped in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom. After an hour on the training deck, he was bruised and even bleeding a little in some places. He watched the cuts a long time, even though they’d stopped bleeding by now. _I’m still human. I still bleed red human blood._ He stared at himself until the falling of a bead of sweat from his brow attracted his attention. _Right, showers._

            He tossed his shirt on the back of a chair near the first shower stall and sat down to get his boots off, then pants, and all the rest. He looked at the stall and sighed. When he’d first had to take a “shower” on the Castle of Lions, he’d been relieved that they weren’t actual water showers but some sort of “sonic disinfection and hygiene-restoration” thing instead. He’d been worried about water shorting his arm out. Perhaps that was silly, given the tech levels they were dealing with, but he’d worried about it regardless. Now, he kind of wished for water just on the off chance it _would_ short it out. And a nice cascade of hot water, complete with steam, sounded about perfect. But this was what there was, and he understood that water was a precious resource in space.

            He opened the door, walked into the stall, and it activated automatically. There was a soft whirring whistle, and his skin began to feel cooler and more refreshed. He put a hand – his Galra hand – against the wall and hung his head, closing his eyes and trying not to think about his failure out there earlier. But that was, of course, impossible for him. When he wasn’t destroying training drones, it was all he could think of.

            _I can’t blame Zarkon for **this**_. _This is all on me._ It was like the trust between himself and his lion had frayed. He could pilot it, and it would respond to all his commands except the most critical one. _I need to hand it over to Allura. I should pass leadership to Keith, let Allura pilot the Black Lion, and just… stop_.

            That sounded wonderful right about then. Where before he had been sick at the thought of having to stop piloting, now it sounded like exactly what he needed. Stop fighting so hard and just accept it. _Who’s the broken soldier now?_ he asked himself bitterly. Sendak’s words rattled through his nerves. He could feel the arm, that cold relic of a year in chains, more solid than his own memories but just as confounding. This enemy artifact that was now so much a part of him that whatever malevolent energy powered it flowed in his veins.

            Staying was dangerous. Staying was… was wrong. It was dangerous for Keith and Pidge and all of them. It was dangerous for Allura and for Coran. For the universe. No. No, he had to step down. Glory was nothing compared to this. Revenge hardly mattered if he was the agent of everyone’s undoing. And protecting his home? He’d be doing the exact opposite.

            He shouldn’t lead Team Voltron anymore.

            The only problem with that was the strain it would put on Allura. Even if Keith took on all the leadership responsibilities, not just in battle, she’d have to pilot and still be responsible for the wormhole jumps, and… He opened his eyes and frowned. She’d take it, too, and never complain as it wore her down. Maybe, when they’d first shown up, she could’ve handled it, but everyone had their limits. After all she’d been through, it amazed him that she was still going. Shock after shock after shock, and she just didn’t stop. But even the strongest could break. He didn’t want to be what broke her. She needed time to recharge, and she didn’t need the extra pressure and responsibility that his abdication – even if well-intentioned – would pile upon her.

            _Maybe I’ll see if Coran has suggestions for any more training flights. We’ll get away, I’ll work on rebuilding my connection to the Black Lion, and Allura can rest up._ He didn’t want to. He wanted to stop, to rest, but what he wanted hadn’t figured much into things since before Kerberos.

            The “shower” stopped. He stayed where he was until the stall chirped at him. Once. Twice. “Fine, fine, I’m getting out,” he muttered as it chirped at him a third time. He pushed the door open and set about getting dressed again. He had to talk to Coran right away, before he changed his mind.

 

 

            “Training flight?” Coran asked. “Hmmm, well there’s the Corellian system. Two of its planets collided and one of the gas giants basically dissolved, so it’s good for training on tight turns and flying in low visibility. Or there’s…”

            “How close are we to that system?”

Coran frowned at Shiro’s interruption, but punched up the coordinates. The map of the galaxy exploded into being around them. He pointed to the system. “Well, here’s the Corellian system, and we’re… here, so…” He started to work the math on his fingers.

            “Uh, can we ask the computer, rather than using ‘the art’ of finger-counting?” Shiro asked him in annoyance. Coran was used to Shiro sounding amused or at least polite (unless he was chastising Lance), so it was a bit of a surprise to hear him so out of sorts.

            “Oh, fine, fine. Take all the elegance out of it.” A few quick button punches. “Two sleep cycles would get us there. Maybe two and a half, if there’s traffic.”

            “Nothing closer, I take it?”

            Coran squinted at the star system map. “No, sorry.”

            “Thank you, Coran. If you don’t think Allura would mind, I’d like to head over there.” He looked around, but Pidge had taken a break, so they were the only ones on the bridge. “I want to give Allura a chance to rest up, and clearly we… _I_ have some work to do anyway.”

            “She’s a mite stressed, but she’s strong,” Coran assured him. “She’ll be fine.” That was his job as royal advisor speaking, of course. He couldn’t do or say anything that would undermine the princess’s ability to lead, including making it seem like she was, however temporarily, unfit for the position. But he shared Shiro’s concern for Allura’s health.

            More importantly, he was glad to see that Shiro _had_ concern for Allura’s health. He wasn’t blind, and he’d been around the system more than once, thankyouverymuch. He could see his princess’s attachment growing. That there might be some hope the affection was mutual was immensely reassuring. _I mean, it sure **looks** like it’s mutual, but who knows with Earthlings?_ They were just similar enough to Alteans to be tricky to read, because you’d get convinced that you knew what they were saying or what they meant, and then SNAP, turned out you had no real idea after all. So much easier with completely divergent species.

            “She’ll be stronger once she’s back to full strength,” Shiro replied. He was looking in the direction of the Corellian system but Coran wasn’t convinced he was really seeing it.

            “So will you. Maybe you could use some rest, too?”

            “Later.”

            “Look, you’re the leader of the paladins. You nearly died. Do you remember how it took a full ‘day’ in the cryo-replenisher for Lance to heal after that explosion?”

            Shiro nodded.

            “You were in that pod for three entire sleep cycles. You were that bad off. Now, they’re great replenishers; they replenish like no one’s business!” Coran declared proudly. “But you’ve been through a lot, physically and mentally.”

            “I don’t have time to rest, Coran.”

            “That’s what Allura’s saying about herself. You have to _make_ time, because if you get worn down, you won’t be an effective leader. So, take some time while we’re en route to the Corellian system. Relax. Meditate. Rejuvenate.”

            “Replenish?” Shiro added on with a wan smile. “The idea of stepping back into the pod and going back to sleep has occurred to me more than once.”

            “Yes, we’ve all had days like that. Or weeks.” Coran cricked his neck. “Try resting up normally first, hm?”

            “I suppose, if I have to. Thanks, Coran.”

            “You’re welcome. Go on!” He made shooing motions at Shiro (well, to Alteans they were ‘shooing’ motions) until Shiro finally walked off the bridge. Coran was beginning to think he could write a treatise on the Care and Raising of Paladins. Neu Yorn Ticks Best-Seller in no time flat!

 

 

            She’d slept too long. She wasn’t even sure it qualified as “sleep” so much as a near-death experience; she’d just passed out and apparently Coran and the paladins had let her stay unconscious most of the day. If it hadn’t been for the mice frolicking across her to wake her up, she might _still_ be asleep. She yawned and stretched as she walked.

            Her sleep schedule was all a-kilter now. Here it was getting on night, and she was just now awake, on her way to the bridge to relieve Coran. She had to admit though, as much as she fussed over the perception of a princess sleeping the day away, she _did_ feel a little better.

            She was taking the long way to the bridge to walk off the lingering fog of oversleep. As she neared the paladin quarters, she slowed her steps, listening. She’d been pacing near here last night when Shiro had started screaming. It was a good corridor for pacing, especially when she’d expected everyone in the rooms to be asleep. It wasn’t the first place Coran was likely to look for her, so she would be left alone with her thoughts and her back-and-forth steps. She probably shouldn’t have been alone with the stress and anxiety that was churning through her at the time, but it had turned out well enough: she’d been close to hand when Shiro needed her.

            Despite what Coran said, her biggest regret about that night was that she’d fallen asleep. She’d spent a lot of time studying Shiro’s face, and she’d begun to recognize a nightmare as it started. She would send some of her energy into him, only a bit, and he’d relax down out of it. The nightmares would always end up winning in the end, but she could stave them off somehow.

            She was glad her experiment had worked, and gladder still that it had been such a help to him. She could still hear him breathe her name that first time as he relaxed into sleep, and it made her lips smile and her pulse quicken, even in memory. She’d helped _that_ much.

            And then she heard him scream again. At first, she thought it was only a memory, but it was too loud and immediate to be that. She ran the few steps to his room and let herself in (no door in _her_ Castle would ever fail to open for her, after all).

            Just as before, he was sitting up in bed, shirtless and sweating, staring off into a darkness only he could see. She ran over and tried to put her hand on him in preparation to help him.

            …but he pushed her away. _Shoved_ her, though not as hard as he likely could have; she stumbled backwards but didn’t fall. “NO! STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

            She tried to close the gap again. “Shiro! Shiro, it’s me, it’s Allura.”

            “I know,” he rasped, pulling himself away from her now. “I know. I can’t…” He shook his head. “Just… just _stay away_.”

            She stopped moving. “Shiro, please, won’t you tell me what these dreams are?”

            He just kept repeating, “I can’t…”

            “Can’t what? Can’t tell me? Why not?”

            “No, no, I can’t stay.”

            That made her blink. “What do you mean you can’t stay?”

            “I can’t stay. I can’t stay here.” He looked over to her, eyes wide, nostrils flared: an animal scenting danger. “Don’t you understand? _It’s in me_. **_They’re_** in me.” He dropped his eyes to his right hand, and took a moment to scrape some more breath together. “Our greatest enemies, and I am their conduit, their Trojan horse, their path straight to the heart of us…”

            She had no idea what a ‘Trojan horse’ was, but she got the gist of it. “You are _not_.”

            “Whether it's the Black Lion or my arm, it's all the same: it's all me.” He jerked his gaze back to hers and told her plaintively, “Even without meaning to, even without wanting to, I am betraying you by staying.” He paused and turned away, clarifying, “The mission, I mean. Our mission to save the universe from Zarkon.”

            “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, you can’t really believe that.”

            He looked straight ahead, and even in the dark and in profile, she saw the set of his jaw and the look on his face that said he’d come to a decision. “Yes, I do.”

            “No.” It was a demand, and before he could try to do something foolish, she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him tightly and pinning them to his sides. It was more of a Hunk-style bear hug than any sort of pin or lock. And, it seemed to work: even if he could move, he didn’t seem inclined to at the moment.

            “Allura?” He sounded slightly more normal there, at least. That was a start, but it wasn’t enough for her to let go of him.

            “What happened to ‘I’m not leaving you’?” she demanded almost petulantly. That tone of voice wasn’t going to help anything. She cleared her throat.

            “That was…”

            “What? A lie?”

            “No, of course not! But this is different. I’m endangering everything and everyone I care about.”

            “You’re not! And even if you were, I. Don’t. Care!” she told him tightly. “I don’t want you to leave.”

            He tried to move to do…something, she wasn’t sure what. But he stopped almost immediately, and she realized it had been his right arm trying to move. He was being hesitant about even using it _as an arm_ now. “I don’t want to leave either, but this isn't about what we want, Allura.” He sighed harshly. “It's never about what we want. You should know that.”

            She’d been thinking similarly only a couple days before, but a sudden realization surged up within her. “No. No, it’s _always_ about what we want, because we want freedom and peace for the universe. And I know that isn’t easy, but so long as we work together, we can do it. We can continue to fight for it, at least. But we have to be _together_ , Shiro.” She loosened her grip a little, enough to be able to pull back and look at him properly to give him what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

            His eyes darted around her face, and he licked his lips. “Together,” he murmured, voice still a little hoarse.

            She could feel tears starting, and she tried to will them away, but all the strength in the universe couldn’t make them stop leaking out. After the last few days (and even after so many hours of sleep), she wasn’t at her steadiest. “Please. I’ve lost so much already. I will continue to sacrifice if it means stopping Zarkon, but I can’t lose you, too.” She dropped her arms and all but fell into a seat on the edge of his bunk. “I can’t make you stay. You said it yourself; it’s a choice you all must make, and it can’t be forced.” She sniffled a little and tried to plead with him with her eyes, to try to keep it out of her voice and maintain some dignity. “But please. Don’t leave.”

            He was quiet, so still aside from his breathing that she was worried he’d just shut down somehow. She didn’t think Earthlings could do that, but she couldn’t be sure. And she didn’t trust herself to say anything else.

            Finally, he reached over with his left hand and gently brushed some of the spilt tears away from her cheeks with two fingers. She sniffled again and smiled hopefully. She’d let go of him and he wasn’t bolting out of the bed at least. That was something.

            His hand was still hovering near her face; he pressed his palm against her cheek, thumb wiping away the last of the tears. Her smile grew and she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his hand, accepting the comfort. _I came here to comfort him, and he’s comforting me. I’m not sure this was how this was supposed to work, but… it’s nice_. She opened her eyes, intending to thank him, and to continue to press him to stay. _I need you here with me_.

            She was surprised to see Shiro leaning towards her. His eyes closed as if he were about to sleep – _maybe humans really **do** shut down sometimes?_ – but then he was pressing his lips against hers, and she had no idea what this was but it was warm and soft and she liked it. And right as she shut her own eyes again – it seemed like the thing to do – he pulled away. She opened them again quickly, blushing in embarrassment, not sure if she’d screwed up some sort of Earthling gesture or ritual and not wanting it to be obvious if she had.

            He seemed more reserved again, still withdrawn, but steadier. He wasn’t looking her in the eye though. “I won’t go,” he said softly, licking his lips again. “But I can’t promise how much good I’ll do by staying.”

            “We’ll figure it out,” she promised. She wanted to ask what that was just now, and what it meant, but his hand was dropping away and he was laying back down. She looked around and spotted the chair in the corner and stood to retrieve it. “I’ll stay until you’re asleep.”

            “I think I’ll be okay tonight.” He yawned. “Coran’s been on the bridge all day.”

            “True.” She bit her lower lip as she thought. _I really should go, and he seems more stable than he was last night_. “If you have any need for me at all, please, let me know. I can find someone to relieve me so I can come help you rest again.”

            He shook his head and yawned again. “I’ll be fine.” His voice was still a little raspy and increasingly thick with sleep. “Have a good night, Allura. And thank you for your help.”

            “Good night, Shiro.” She retreated as he turned onto his side, putting his back to her. Whatever it was that had happened, it had helped calm him and convince him to stay. She’d remember that.

 

 

            As the pilots slept, the black masses on each of the lions swelled. Each grease slick-seeming mass was actually made up of many smaller blobs, giving the whole conglomeration the appearance of boiling oil as they bubbled and grew. There were already too many of them to be sated with just what they could get from the lions themselves. Small throngs of the dark globules dropped off and rolled away, seeking out new food sources within the Castle.

 

 

            The next morning, Hunk surprised them all: “Triple-refined food goo!” he proudly declared. He’d been the first one up, apparently, and proudly presented Pidge with her bowl, which had about a third of the usual goo in it.

            “Uh, Hunk? Where’s the rest of it?”

            “That’s the thing: _it’s triple-refined!_ Better taste, higher nutrient density, and more filling! It uses only a fraction more energy to produce, but you can eat less of it, get the same nutritional value, and still be full!”

            “It’s the ‘better taste’ part that I’m really finding hard to believe,” she said. In Pidge’s opinion, food goo tasted like slimy oatmeal, and the fact that it was an almost radioactive green wasn’t helping. But there was nothing else to eat, and it wasn’t all that bad, really.

            Hunk pouted at her and pointed out, “You haven’t even tried it yet.”

            So, fine. What was the worst that could happen: it tasted the same and she went a little hungry until lunch? She popped a spoonful in her mouth, chewed thoughtfully (as much as you needed to chew food goo), and then blinked. “Hunk, this is _amazing_! It’s nowhere near as slimy and it- it’s actually _GOOD_.”

            Hunk was beaming ear to ear. “I told you!”

            Pidge had to stop herself from just shoveling it all in her mouth. Knowing she had a smaller portion, she savored each spoonful. As the others came trailing in, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes and tried to pretend Mom had made oatmeal at home for her and Matt. _Don’t start crying_ , she told herself, hearing Lance and Keith already starting their morning bickering (well, Lance was trying to start it; Keith wasn’t answering).

            “Since we’re all here,” Shiro said, and Pidge opened her eyes to look over at him, “I should let you know that I’ve asked Coran to take us to a nearby system for another training flight.”

            “Let’s hope it goes better than the last one,” Keith commented.

            “Agreed,” Shiro replied. “I- I’m sorry I let you all down in that battle, and I thought we might want to take some time to reconnect. I definitely need it, apparently, and it would also give the princess some downtime. She’s had a lot on her plate lately, what with us being scattered all over the place and her having to do twice as much while I was …absent.”

            There was a general murmuring of agreement, and then Shiro looked over at her. “How’s it coming on the intel, Pidge?”

            “Oh, actually, I did find something a little interesting. Not sure if it’s really useful, but it’s better than the seven thousandth underwear request.”

            Shiro smiled just a little. “What is it?”

            “Well, there was a shipment sent from Zarkon’s central command to that space station. It was marked ‘High Priority’ and also ‘Delicate’…”

            “You mean ‘Fragile’?” Lance asked.

            “No, I mean it was literally marked ‘Delicate’,” she told him, “even though other packages have occasionally been marked ‘Fragile’. Also, there was a note on the manifest that said _not_ to open it to double-check contents. Like bold and triple-underlined ‘NOT’.”

            “Huh.” Shiro was quiet a moment. “High Priority, Delicate, and Do Not Open, huh?”

            “Yeah. It’s too bad they…,” she caught herself, “uh, that we can’t see what it was.” What if there had been prisoners on that station when it blew? She knew her family wasn’t on it, but it still bothered her.

            “Maybe that’s _why_ they did it,” Keith said.

            “Did they think we were going to board them and rummage through their stuff?” Lance asked.

            Hunk shrugged. “Guess we’ll never know now.”

            “Well, that _is_ more interesting than underwear,” Shiro acknowledged. He reached across the table to pat her hand. “Good work. Keep it up.”

            “I will. I think I might’ve figured out how to break the extra level of encryption on this one database I’ve been trying to get into.”

            “Watch it be like, ‘top-secret underwear’,” Hunk said. “Turns out Zarkon likes tighty-whities or something.” They all laughed, even Shiro, and it felt so good. It was starting to feel like a team again, like a family. Maybe they’d turned the corner. Pidge hoped so, anyway. She’d already lost one family; she couldn’t stand to lose another.

 

 

            Lance was taking stock of where things stood. Allura was still hot, that was undeniable. Pidge was still one of the guys, and he was still mostly sure that hadn’t changed how he felt about her. Nothing had changed regarding Hunk (goofy, lovable, occasionally gassy), Coran (good guy, terrible cook), or Shiro (legendary and awesome). Keith was the only difference.

            He wasn’t even really sure how he’d explain what he’d seen if he had to tell someone about it. Not that he intended to. But if he _had_ to for some reason…? _It was surrender, but not the right kind._ Not the _expected_ kind, really. He wanted Keith to surrender the other way, the way one did when faced with a clearly superior warrior. He wanted Keith to acknowledge that he, Lance, was supreme, dammit!

            And he hadn’t gotten that, but instead had gotten the look he’d seen on hundreds… scores… dozens… okay on a few girls’ faces before: curiosity, interest, and a willingness to be kissed. Like, sometimes messages were mixed, and Lance had to tread carefully, and that was fine, because a skilled ladies’ man like himself had no problem winning a girl over. But he’d seen that look _a lot_ (no, really, _A LOT,_ ask around back home!... if that were possible), and the one place he definitely never thought he’d see it was on KEITH.

            And, y’know, if he could set aside the fact that this was his Number One Rival, it… wasn’t that bad an idea? He’d never really considered making out with a guy before, but girls had gone from cootie-mobiles to super-kissable practically overnight. It was new information, that’s all, and he could deal with that, he was adaptable. But just… it was _Keith_.

            He wondered what would’ve happened if he’d done it. It was possible he’d read it wrong, and he’d have gotten himself smacked for it. _Or it might’ve been a sneaky ploy to get me to give up my victory!_ But, nah. Somehow that didn’t really seem likely. And his curiosity hadn’t diminished his desire to beat Keith in …something, anything, EVERYTHING.

            He still wanted to win. And even though lots of people referred to it as “the game of love”, he didn’t really think of it that way. Sure, there were rules, and there was no small amount of skill involved (as he should know ‘cause he was THE MASTER), but how did you “beat” someone at something like this? If he and Keith had both been competing for the same person, that’d be one thing. But this?

            And even if there were a way to “win” over Keith in this particular competition, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Keith and his rivalry with him were some of the only remaining ties he had to home. Sure, Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro, of course. His clothes and his phone. His favorite playlists. But his rivalry with Keith was part of his identity. _Lance and Keith, neck and neck!_ He wasn’t sure it was so easy to give up.

            He thought he’d been doing pretty good at playing things cool, but Keith was quieter than usual and keeping away from him now. He hadn’t seemed like the type to run away and hide, but maybe he was just as confused as Lance was. He sure wasn’t complaining about having the time to think, for now. But there was gonna come a time…

            _Later. Not now, anyway._

            He popped into Blue’s hangar and put a smile on. “Hey, buddy! Hope you like Queen Bey, ‘cause we’re gonna ROCK today!”

            There was no answer. Blue usually acknowledged him somehow when he came into the hangar. But today, there was nothing.

            “Don’t tell me you’re _asleep_ ,” he teased as he walked up to pat one of Blue’s forelegs. “Hey, wakey, wakey!” Still nothing. He cocked his head and started walking around the lion.

            “Hey! Hello in there!” _Do alien robot lions even **need** to sleep?_ There was nothing. He couldn’t see anything wrong until he got all the way around to the other side. There, just behind the other foreleg, was a black greasy spot. “Huh? How’d that get there?”

            He clambered up the leg (master athlete that he was) and peered at the spot. _It’s HUGE. And…_ “EW! IT’S MOVING!” he couldn’t help yelling aloud. He lost his grip and slid back down Blue’s leg. He hit the back of the claws and went sprawling over them. His head hit the deck with a pretty audible THUD, and it rang his hearing and vision a bit.

            He scrambled back to his feet quickly (and somewhat unsteadily) to look at the ooze. As he watched, part of it dripped down to the floor and… rolled away. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. It rolled off, splatted against a wall, and absorbed itself into one of the panels. He should probably have tried to stop it, but he wasn’t sure _how_ ‘cause he wasn’t about to TOUCH that stuff.

            “Oh, man, I do _not_ like this.” He bolted for the hangar’s comm panel and activated the intercom. “Guys? Hey, guys? I think you might want to come see this.”

           

 

            “Uh, I think you hit your head a little hard,” Hunk told Lance.

            “I did **not**!”

            “You have a giant goose egg on your head,” Keith pointed out.

            “And there’s blood on the floor here,” Pidge added.

            “Okay, so, _yes_ , I hit my head, but not so hard that I’m hallucinating!” He gestured to the black spot on Blue’s hull. “You can see that, right? I’m not hallucinating THAT!”

            “Yeah, but it looks like oil or grease or something,” Hunk said, peering up at it.

            “Though, it’s odd that it’s there, I guess?” Pidge shrugged. “But whatever. I’m going back to my analysis.”

            Lance grabbed her arm before she could leave. “No, no, seriously, Pidge! It like ooooozed off and then plopped to the ground and then it just ROLLED AWAY! THAT WAY! INTO THE PANEL!!!”

            Hunk narrowed his eyes and said, “Okay, okay, let me look at it.” He turned and walked towards the wall, calling back over his shoulder, “And next time, use a ladder, Lance! The Alteans _have ladders_.”

            “Blue normally looks out for me.”

            “What do you mean ‘normally’?” Shiro asked. “It’s not now?”

            “What did you expect it to do,” Keith snarked, “save you from your own stupidity?”

            Hunk had hoped that the awesome breakfast he’d made this morning would convince Keith not to pick on Lance (and vice versa), but so much for that dream. There was only so much that good food could fix, after all.

            “Blue didn’t even say hello when I came in.”

            “So?”

            “So?! Doesn’t your lion say hi to you when you come in?”

            “Uh, they don’t talk.”

            “I know that! But…”

            “Both of you, stop it.” Shiro was, as ever, playing peace-keeper. Hunk got the rolling (well, floating – alien tech was _awesome_ ) ladder out of the supply closet built into the hangar wall and started pushing it back over. Shiro was literally standing between Keith and Lance. “Lance says Blue greets him when he comes in. I believe Blue greets Lance when he comes in. Whether anyone else’s lion does that with them is irrelevant. It could just be a peculiarity of Blue’s or it could be because Lance has been bonded to his lion longer than any of us.”

            “YEAH!”

            Keith backed down and looked away. Hunk brought the ladder up next to Blue, set the hover-locks, and climbed up. “Well, that’s _not_ oil or grease.” He tried tilting his head, looking at it from different angles. “But it’s not really moving, either.”

            Lance whirled around to face Hunk now. “I’m. Telling You. IT WAS.”

            “Maybe you should go to the infirmary-,” Shiro suggested gently.

            “NUH UH, I’ll heal on my own, thanks.” Other than visiting Shiro during his recovery, Lance had avoided the infirmary ever since the corrupted AI incident. “I’ve been a popsicle long enough, thanks. Uh… no offense.”

            “None taken.”

            “Well, it’s a smudge of something,” Hunk said with a shrug, getting back on topic. “Just clean it up.”

            “Oh no! NonononoNO! I am _not_ going near that space goop!”

            “Way to be brave, Lance,” Keith muttered.

            “Knock it OFF,” Shiro warned.

            “You’d be the same way if you’d seen it do what I saw it do! And where’s Pidge?”

            “Over here!” she called. Hunk had to look away from the guys to see Pidge poking around in one of the wall panels. “You said it came this way, right?”

            “Yes!” Lance started to run over towards her. “Did you fi-...”

            “I found nothing,” she said, deflating Lance almost visibly. He stopped and pouted. Hunk climbed down and jogged over to Pidge.

            “Like, not even a trace of it? ‘Cause if it’s all black and ooze-y, you’d think…”

            “Yeah, nothing,” she confirmed. “If it was here, it’s not here now.”

            “See? It’s safe. You can clean up your own lion now,” Keith told Lance.

            “Keith, you’re not helping,” Shiro told him. And Keith tossed his hands in the air and stalked out. “Lance, it isn’t that we don’t believe you…”

            “Please! None of you believe me!”

            “Well, there’s kind of a lack of evidence,” Pidge pointed out.

            “What about that goop on my lion?!”

            “What about it?” Hunk asked. “It’s… goop. Non-food goo. At least, I don’t think it’s food.”

            “Ugh, you try it; I like living.”

            “No, that’s okay. There’s a time and a place for putting strange things in your mouth.” Pidge snorted, Shiro coughed, and even Lance had to swallow laughter at that. Hunk thought back over what he’d said and the realization hit him. “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEAN, GUYS! I’m talking about, y’know, in a LAB you have to be careful with stuff you don’t know, but if you’re at someone else’s house and they make you a special dish but you’ve never seen it before, and maybe it even smells weird, but…”

            “It’s okay, Hunk, we know what you mean,” Shiro tried to console him, but it was hard when he was still smiling a little. Hunk pouted. “And I really don’t think anyone should be trying to eat it.”

            “I’m still not cleaning it,” Lance declared, folding his arms.

            “It’s your lion,” Shiro started, but Hunk had had enough.

            “Look, I’LL clean it, okay?! Yeesh.”

            “Good. I’m going back to my console,” Pidge said, putting the panel back on the wall.

            Shiro patted Lance’s shoulder. “It’ll be fine, Lance. And I’m sure whatever’s going on with Blue, you’ll get it sorted out.”

            “Maybe it’s just mad at you ‘cause you let it get dirty and wouldn’t clean it up,” Hunk pointed out. “’Cause y’know cats are very clean creatures, but I don’t think the lions can lick themselves clean, especially since they have blaster cannons in place of tongues.”

            Lance seemed to be unimpressed with his genius deduction. “Thanks, Hunk.”

            “Yeah, no problem.” It was so much more fun to react to sarcasm with sincerity, and he couldn’t help grinning as he heard Lance sigh heavily at his response. Hunk went back to the supply closet to dig out the cleaner (it reminded him of a buffer sponge but it had its own special Altean cleaning solution in it) while Pidge and Shiro took off back to their own duties.

            When he turned ‘round again, Lance was standing there in front of Blue, patting it on its jaw. “We’ll figure this out,” he promised quietly, frowning.

            “I get it, y’know,” he said to Lance.

            “What? Why I don’t want to clean that nasty goo off?”

            “No, that’s just you being a scaredy-cat,” Hunk said matter-of-factly, “but the other thing, about Blue not sayin’ hi to you? I get why that would bother you. Goldie always purrs at me when I show up. It settles me down, makes me feel less anxious and, uh, nauseous, actually. I feel… welcome. Not quite like home, but like I’m going to an aunt or uncle’s house, y’know? Just really, really welcome and warm and like Goldie’s glad I’m there.”

            Lance perked up a little. “Yeah! Yeah, dude, it’s like that with me and Blue, kinda! Only for me, it’s more like I’ve just gone over to my best friend’s place and we’re gonna hang out and have fun and I don’t ever have to worry ‘cause I know Blue’s got my back no matter _what_. Only it’s not really a purr, and not a meow. A ‘merr’ maybe? A ‘purrow’?”

            “Uh, it doesn’t really need a name,” Hunk suggested, before Lance came up with something worse. “It’s the feeling that’s important. And I’m sorry Blue’s not… communicating that way right now. I totally get why that would upset you.” He climbed back up the ladder. “And I know it’s not quite the same, but I just want you to know that, even if Blue doesn’t have your back, I do, buddy, and I always will.”

            Lance smiled a little. “Thanks, Hunk. Right back atcha, of course.”

            Hunk grinned and reached towards the spot with the cleaner sponge and it... fell off. “Whoa. What the…?”

            “What? What’d it do now?!”

            “It just slid right off before I could get to it.”

            Lance practically bolted away from the ladder, though he hadn’t been that close to begin with. “What?! Where’d it go!?”

            “I don’t know! Just… down!” Hunk gestured, still peering down and trying to see where it’d gone. He heard a sound and whipped his head in Lance’s direction. “Dude, is that your BAYARD?!” Lance was aiming his rifle at the ground. “Don’t fire that thing in here!”

            “I don’t want that stuff coming after me! I’ve seen too many movies like this!”

            Hunk groaned. “Those were _movies_. This is _real life._ Settle down.” He climbed back down the ladder. “It was a surprise, but hey, at least it’s off now.”

            “Yeah, but _where did it **go**_?!”

            “Who cares?”

            “I CARE!” Lance all but shrieked.

            Hunk approached Lance carefully, trying to make sure he wasn’t in the rifle’s line of fire. “Okay, look, I know you don’t like the infirmary…”

            “I Didn’t Hit My Head That Hard And I’m NOT Going Back Into a Pod For a Goose-Egg,” he declared definitively.

            “Okay, okay, but maybe ease down and relax?” Idea! “Hey, why don’t you go into Blue and double-check its systems? Make sure it’s okay and all.”

            Lance didn’t move at first, but slowly he lowered his rifle. “Yeah, that…” It returned to being a bayard and he shoved it back into his jacket pocket. “Yeah, okay. Good idea. Thanks, Hunk.”

            Hunk smiled and waited until Lance was inside his lion before he heaved his sigh of relief. He did do a cursory sweep to see if he could see any trace of the black smudge, but it seemed to have just disappeared when it hit the ground. _Maybe it turned into dust or something? Evaporated?_ Eh, his work here was done, and it seemed like Lance could stand to be left alone with Blue for a bit. Hunk unlocked the ladder and tugged it back to the supply closet. He stowed it and the cleaner-sponge away, closed the door, and let Lance be Lance. As he headed for the door, he thought he could hear, faintly from within the Blue Lion, “…all the single ladies, Put Your Hands UP!”

 

 

            “My lord, it is time,” Haggar reported. Zarkon stood and walked over to the room’s main panel, punching up a split screen as he hailed the four commanders he needed.

            “I am sending you coordinates,” he informed them. “Rendezvous there at the appointed time, and follow your orders _precisely_. It should be an easy task for you all. Failure will not be tolerated.”

            Their voices rang out in a chorus of the expected, “Vrepit sa!” and their screens closed almost simultaneously.

            Zarkon smiled in grim satisfaction. “This will be the undoing of the princess and her so-called paladins. And then Voltron will be back where it belongs.” He turned back to Haggar. “And you will have more subjects for your experiments into the bargain. But remember what we discussed about Alfor’s daughter and any other Alteans.”

            “I remember, my lord.”

            “Good. You have been my most trusted and loyal advisor, Haggar. Don’t make me revise my opinion of you.”

 

 

            As the Castle of Lions sped through space, a black ooze welled up over the components of the main engine control panel. Some settled in to feed on what energy they could suck out of the system here, but others, less content with such a paltry meal, slid silently onward, oozing out from between panels and into the chamber proper. They boiled towards the pull of the energy from the crystal collected by the central turbine. Even without being able to touch it, the ooze could grow just from the ambient energies collecting in the center column. It bubbled up, balls of black slime stacking atop each other as they reached for the feast, and slowly a dark, clawed hand formed to grasp at the railing.

 

 

            It weighed on him. He spent less time with the others on the way to the Corellian system because of it, and he justified it by saying that they were going there to train, so there’d be lots of time with the guys later. But all he could think about was that night.

            _I was **exhausted** ,_ he reminded himself. _I had just had another nightmare, and she was there, and she was so kind and comforting, and I…_

 _…was weak,_ another part of himself chimed in. _You had no right to kiss her! It’s no wonder she didn’t return it! You surprised her and stole that kiss from her, and she wasn’t there for that. You know that._

_But the way she was looking at me… and she pressed her cheek into my palm! And she smiled, and…_

_She. Wasn’t. There. For That. She wanted you to stay and lead Voltron. She didn’t want you to stay for **her**. _

He knew all of this. He’d been berating himself since it’d happened. And there was no justifying it, there was no excusing it, and he owed her an apology, but he couldn’t find the words for it. He still wasn’t sure he should still be here, but…

            _I_ am _staying for her._

            It was the truth, and it hadn’t gotten any easier to accept. It was selfish. It was stupid. It was the worst thing he could possibly do. Or was it? Because he wasn’t _only_ staying for her. He did want to help save the universe, and he did want to keep her from having to bear her responsibilities alone, and he did, if he was being honest, want vengeance. _Zarkon and that evil witch of his…_

            Flashes like gunshots in his mind – Zarkon’s face. Haggar’s lab. His arm. Surrender. Surrender to the Galra, to the experiments, to Zarkon’s reassertion of control over the Black Lion… it was so much easier to surrender.

**_NO, I WILL NOT._ **

            Anger was such an easy emotion; it made him feel more in control, but it didn’t help anything. He opened his eyes and sighed and tried to resettle himself again. His attempts at meditation were going badly awry lately. He closed his eyes and centered himself.

            _Allura_.

            _STOP THAT_.

            He’d done his best to muffle his screams at night; last night he’d bit his lip so hard it had bled. He didn’t want Allura to happen by and hear him, or for one of the others to go tell her. She had to believe he was better. She had to stop worrying about him. She couldn’t come here anymore. It wasn’t right to impose on her like that, to take her energy and her time and her sleep from her like that. And when he wasn’t as in control of himself, when he so badly needed comfort, and his emotions were more like raw nerves, he did rash, stupid, impulsive things. Like kissing her without any warning.

            He gave up on meditating, throwing himself off his bunk and pacing his room.

            _Okay, okay. I’m going to have to apologize. I had no right to do that, and even if I wasn’t my strongest at the time, that’s no excuse. I will apologize to Allura and we’ll be at the Corellian system for training in about half a day, so then I can work on getting my connection back…_

            Which was another thing entirely: his connection to his lion felt… thready. Worse than it had been when Zarkon had forced him out of the cockpit. Much worse: Zarkon had had to _force_ him out, after all. Now, when Shiro sat in the Black Lion, eyes shut, and tried to see what his lion saw, there was nothing but darkness. There was no feeling of connection when he took hold of the controls. If Zarkon showed up now, Shiro wasn’t sure there’d be any resistance at all.

            Lance’s comments about Blue “saying hi” to him came back to Shiro. Thinking back on it, the Black Lion acknowledged him when he entered, as if it were giving an affirmative response to his unspoken question of “Ready?”. It wasn’t friendly, necessarily, but it was a source of strength and confidence to back up his own. It was support. It was the knowledge that he wasn’t fighting alone.

            _The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who is a born leader and in control at all times_ …

            If he was being honest with himself, he hadn’t felt “in control” in a long time. Not since before Zarkon took over the Black Lion. After that it had been fighting to regain his lion, fighting against Haggar, fighting to live, fighting to figure out what had happened and why.

            He stopped walking and took a deep breath. _It’s all Zarkon’s fault. It’s not mine._ But fault or not, it didn’t change the enemy technology that had replaced his right arm. He wasn’t responsible, but he was still…

            “No,” he told the empty room. “I am in control of myself. I am _not_ Galra. I am not the enemy.” And he had to prove that to himself, with more than just words. The first thing to do was to apologize to Princess Allura for the thoughtless way he had taken advantage of her, and then he was going to spend every waking moment figuring out how to re-establish his connection with the Black Lion so that their time spent in training would be that much more effective.

            He hadn’t done more than turn towards the door when alarms started blaring loud and then… fading. They pulsed – loud, soft, suddenly deafening, whisper quiet – and the lights started flickering. “What the…?” Shiro ran for the bridge.

 

 

            “I don’t understand what’s happening!” Coran reported to her. “Systems are failing all over the Castle!”

            “We’re losing engine power,” Pidge reported from her terminal. The alarm had given up entirely, but the lights were still flashing.

            “Uh, guys?” Hunk said, pointing up at the crystal in its housing. It was starting to darken, almost like it was being encased in…

            “It’s That GOO!” Lance exclaimed.

            “Get away from it!” Coran yelled at Allura, but she was already backing away as it oozed towards the floor from the crystal housing. As ooze hit the floor, some of it was coalescing into fist-sized balls. Shiro put himself between her and the black slime, watching it intently.

            And then Lance shot at the still-dripping goo.

            “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Hunk shrieked. “You want to blow up the crystal AGAIN?!”

            “He didn’t hit the crystal,” Pidge told Hunk. “Calm down.”

            This was where Allura expected Lance to brag about his marksmanship skills (not entirely without merit, she had to admit, given the low-and-flashing light in the room), but he was keeping his eye – and his targeting reticle – on the goo. The fact that the normally cocky boy was keeping quiet was what really had her spooked.

            The ooze had slowed at Lance’s shot, but now it practically cascaded out of the crystal housing. She almost expected it to splash, but instead it was… forming something, ooze clumps stacking one atop another. “Does that look like legs to anyone else?” Hunk asked.

            Keith’s sword flashed into his hand and he slashed through the forming legs viciously. It didn’t seem to faze the ooze one bit. Lance tried shooting it again, knocking out a couple goo balls. They threw themselves back at the main mass and melded back in.

            “They can just throw themselves at each other and combine into something bigger?!” Hunk protested. “Dammit, we tried that and it didn't work! How come they get to do it?”

            Shiro put an arm out between Allura and the creature. It didn’t escape her notice that it was his right arm, and already glowing. “Coran…”

            “Oh, believe me, I’m getting out of here!” her advisor responded, edging around the control room. The creature was between him and the rest of the paladins, save Pidge, who was on one side of the thing. Coran was heading for her, and she had her bayard in her hand, ready to go.

            “Swords don’t seem to hurt it. Lance’s rifle only seemed to have made it angry,” Allura mused aloud, watching the ooze form a black, slimy bulk.

            “Yeah, I’m not even going to try,” Hunk put in.

            “Guess it’s up to you and me, Pidge,” Shiro said. He was stepping back, forcing Allura to do likewise.

            “If you say ‘ladies first,’ you’re getting tased,” she warned him.

            He smiled just a little at her banter. “No, no, allow me. I want you over there until Coran makes it safely to this side of the room, anyway.” And he charged at the beast as something akin to a head formed up. He tried to slash his hand through the “throat” area, earning a high-pitched screech, but the wound closed up again instantly. A dark claw shot out and grabbed hold of his Galra arm and now he was the one screaming as the light of his hand began to flicker and dim.

            “Shiro!” She started to run towards the creature.

            “Princess, stay BACK!” Keith yelled, but she ignored him.

            Before she even got within range of the beast, it seemed to… swivel towards her somehow. It had no facial features – none she could make out in the guttering light – but she felt very much like its attention was on her. It dropped Shiro and _lunged_ for her.

            There was a crackling sound, and the creature stopped even as Allura skidded to a halt. The oozebeast’s claw was barely an inch from her nose, and there was a crisp, burning smell in the air. She looked over and realized Pidge had zapped the thing from distance with her bayard, its cable wrapped around the attacking arm.

            “Get him out of there!” Pidge yelled, and Allura didn’t need to be told twice. She ducked under the extended arm of the frozen creature and picked Shiro up, carrying him back towards the door. She laid him down gently, and he groaned, pale, semi-conscious, and sweating. Coran and Hunk came over to tend to him as Allura turned back towards the thing. Pidge retracted the cable.

            “Is it dead?” Lance asked.

            Almost as if in response, it started to glow purple and then it roared.

            “You had to ask,” Keith groaned.

            Allura expected it to go after Pidge as it regained movement, but instead it started after _her_ again.

            “BAD!” Pidge yelled like she was reprimanding a dog, and tried to tase it up close. It screeched and one oozeball fell off and laid still. The creature swung a claw at her face and she yelled; even in the bad light, Allura could see her skin go white rather than red where she’d been hit.

            “Don’t let it touch you!” Allura called out to them.

            “Yeah, not doing that again if I can help it,” Pidge replied, rubbing her stinging cheek.

            “Pidge is the only one who can stop this thing,” Keith said, “But it looks like she needs direct contact to do any actual damage. So, boys? Let’s…”

            “Provoke and evade?” Hunk put in. He stood up and moved next to Allura, pulling out his own bayard now.

            “Exactly,” Keith added with a grin.

            “Be careful with the evading part,” Pidge added. She danced away as the boys started their attacks. Hunk’s multiple-shot volley pulled the beast’s attention towards him… and Allura. It screeched and lunged. Pidge shot the bayard’s cable, zapping it long enough to halt it in place. “And it really seems to like the princess.”

            She didn’t like it, but she moved back, letting Hunk and Lance put themselves between her and the beast. She returned to Shiro’s side, and let Coran keep an eye on the battle for her. Shiro looked so much like he was having another nightmare that she tried to give him some of her energy again, to see if it would restore him at all. Similar symptoms, anyway… she figured it was worth trying.

            And then the oozebeast let out a keening wail. She looked up in time to see Hunk get knocked sideways and skid across the floor. Lance fired two shots at the beast, but it knocked him aside, too.

            “Princess! STOP IT!” Coran demanded, and she did, more out of shock than anything else. The creature fell silent but she could still feel its malevolence aimed towards her. It started to lunge again, but Pidge electrocuted it once more, keeping her bayard in full contact with the beast longer. The smell was foul, but a smoldering chunk of the oozeballs fell to the deck. The rest of the ooze rearranged itself to try to cover the injury.

            “Ugh,” Hunk said, getting back to his feet. “That hurt.”

            “That sucked,” Lance said. Allura looked over to see Keith helping him get back up as well. “Like literally. It feels like it’s draining you dry when it hits you.”

            “Draining?” Coran asked. “Of course! That’s why the systems are failing, and why it came out of the crystal housing! It must feed on energy!”

            “Shiro’s arm,” Keith commented.

            “And Allura,” Pidge put in. “No wonder, with her power reserves.”

            “But this is the same stuff that was on the Lions and they still work,” Lance said. “At least, Blue’s systems do. But Blue just feels like… like a robot.”

            “It’s not that sort of energy it wants,” Coran said, but there was no more time for chit-chat. The oozebeast reanimated and screeeeeeeeeched furiously, whirling towards Pidge.

            “KEEP IT OFF HER!” Keith yelled. He hacked his sword into the beast’s “shoulder” area and then shoved his sword sideways, the flat of the blade swiping some of the oozeballs away from the main body of the thing. It was a temporary disruption, of course, as the oozeballs threw themselves back at the main mass again, but it did slightly more good than a regular slice.

            Hunk unleashed another volley and Lance aimed for the “heart” area – not that this animated mass of writhing black slime seemed to have any such a thing. The beast turned back to the annoyances, deciding to swat at Keith this time as he batted away some more goo chunks. He danced back, but not quite soon enough, and hissed as his hand was struck.

            “Careful!” Lance called over. “Were you not listening to me?”

            “I’m not _trying_ to get hit!” Keith shot back.

            “MORE FIGHTING THE OOZE, LESS FIGHTING EACH OTHER!” Hunk declared as he fired off more rounds. And then Pidge’s bayard cable wrapped around one of its legs. She set the cable to retract and it drew her in towards the beast, sliding along the floor as the creature was immobilized. Now in close, she could fry off a couple more chunks with the bayard directly before it could move again. She had to dive away as it swung around with a long, arcing sweep of its claws.

            “Its right leg is weaker now!” she called out to them. “It had to stretch itself thin to cover the holes!”

            “Got it!” Keith replied, and tried to swipe away some of the goo.

            “ _ITS_ right, Keith, not yours!” Pidge reiterated.

            “Sorry.” He screamed as the thing’s claw got his shoulder. Lance blasted the claw away and Keith stumbled backwards.

            Allura saw her chance and darted forward to try and steady Keith before he fell over. But her movement attracted the oozebeast again. Hunk and Lance increased their rates of fire, and Pidge went after the second leg. “I’m alright,” Keith said. “Just look after Shiro and try not to let it notice you.”

            “I can’t stand around and do nothing!” she protested.

            “You’re a prime target for this thing. If it gets ahold of you, who knows what it’ll be able to do with all that energy you’ve got.” Keith straightened out his jacket with a single hard tug. “Besides, Shiro’d never forgive me if you got hurt.” And then he charged back into the fight, going after the same leg again now that it had been injured. The oozebeast wailed as it went down to one leg, but it didn’t last long, as expected.

            Allura retreated to Shiro’s side and frowned. _Just sit here and be helpless, then_ , she pouted mentally. She couldn’t try to heal Shiro because her energy use attracted the thing’s attention. She couldn’t help fight or even support for the same reason.

            She looked to Shiro. His right arm was dark still (not that she’d expected otherwise), but from what she could tell in the flickering light, his color was getting better. She brushed some of the sweat away from his brow and wished she could at least help _him_ if not the others. She sighed and looked back towards the fight… and discovered she couldn’t find Coran.

            “Coran? Coran, where are you?!”

            “Just trying something!” he called back from the other side of the oozebeast. “It doesn’t like electricity very much, does it?”

            “Apparently not,” Pidge said.

            “Hunk! I could use a hand over here!” Coran grunted as he did… whatever it was he was doing. Between the on-and-off lights and the beast itself, Allura couldn’t see what was going on over there.

            Hunk stopped firing and waited a couple of ticks while Lance and Keith upped their distraction game. Pidge got in a good shot, the oozebeast froze again, and Hunk bolted around to Coran’s position. “Keep it distracted, guys!” he yelled out as the beast reanimated. “This is gonna take a bit.”

            “How long is a bit?!” Pidge demanded.

            “Are we having another clock party?” Lance asked with a grin.

            “Can’t you tell?” Keith replied, swiping away more goo balls.

            Lance pouted as he fired two more shots. “I think we hired the wrong clown for this party.”

            Pidge grunted as she dived away from a claw swipe. “More Distracting, Less Flirting!”

            “We’re Not Flirting!” Lance and Keith said in unison. Allura couldn’t help a snort at that, despite the situation.

            “You’re not distracting either!” Pidge shot back.

            So the boys continued shooting and swiping and Pidge fried off a couple more chunks. The beast was getting angrier. Suddenly, its center mass began to boil.

            “Uhh… what’s it doing?” Lance asked worriedly.

            “Allura!” Coran yelled. She whipped her head in the direction of his voice; he was still behind the creature but to one side, and he had thrown… something at her. She brought her hands up reflexively and caught a small piece of machinery.

            “What is this for?”

            “PRINCESS!”

            At Keith’s yell, she whipped her head back just in time to see the bubbling ooze in the center of the creature lash out towards her. There wasn’t time to duck; she threw up the arm that was holding the machine part.

            It burned like frost, and she was aware that she was screaming but it seemed distant compared to the leeching glaciation in her veins. She heard Coran’s voice through her screams, but it was hard to make out words. It sounded like ‘channel’? ‘Convert’? Words weren’t making much sense through the pain.

            She felt hands on her arm and shoulder, and the screaming increased, but there was energy flowing into her. _Coran_. He was trying to heal her somehow? No, and even if he was, it wasn’t… but the frostburn eased a little somehow. _Channel_.

            She used her energy, even though she’d been told not to. She let it flow through her with no direction, and suddenly there was a loud screech and the pain and the burn and the cold fled as though they feared the sound. She looked up at the oozebeast, feeling woozy and wan.

            It was reeling back from her, a large hole in the middle of its body. “Holy cats, Coran, what’d you do?!” Lance was saying.

            “Talk later!” Pidge said, getting in another long tase to the thing.

            “Princess, are you okay?” Coran was asking. He looked a little pale himself, but he still seemed more vibrant than Allura felt.

            “I’m fine,” she lied. “Help me up.” He gave her that frown that meant he didn’t believe her, but he did it anyway. He was a good advisor, first to her father, and now to her. She appreciated him, and she’d have to remember to tell him that when this was over. She opened her hand and looked down at the machine part. “Coran, what is this?”

            “Power converter. I stripped it out and Hunk helped me get it working without need to be hooked up to our systems.”

            “Power converter?” She was still woozy. Her throat hurt. _I wonder if this is what Shiro feels like when he wakes up from those nightmares of his?_

            “It’s what the ship uses to convert the crystal’s energy into more standard energy forms… like electricity. It should work on sacred Altean energy as well.”

            “So I can zap the thing?” she asked, a grin starting.

            “Yes, but please do be careful.”

            “Nanny,” she teased. He nodded, and she redirected her attention and all her remaining strength to the task at hand.

            Hunk resumed firing from behind the thing. Pidge tased a leg. Lance shot at its right shoulder, and Keith swiped away at its left. The hole had been healed, but the creature was stretching itself thin.

            Allura charged, a loud battlecry scraping its way out of her throat. She channeled her energy through the power converter, which glowed blue where it touched her hand and crackled white-hot at the other hand. She shoved it into the creature’s center mass, and even though the ooze closed around her hand, and even though it was colder than anything she’d ever known, it didn’t drain her this time. It hurt, but she gritted her teeth and bore through it, channeling more energy into the converter and trying to ignore the acrid burning stench that filled the room.

            Plop. Plop plop. Oozeballs came off in fat, smoking chunks, falling to the deck and laying still. Pidge tased one or two of the larger ones, just to be sure, but they didn’t react. Allura finally backed away and let her energy flow return to normal. The oozebeast was a statue, and then all at once it crumbled, the chunks and even the oozeballs themselves crumpling into dust.

            “So, wait, if this thing or things or whatever fed on energy…?” Lance asked.

            “They don’t feed on electricity,” Hunk told him.

            “It feeds, er, fed,” Coran looked at the still-smoldering dust, “on quintessence. That’s an entirely different type of energy.”

            “So it sucks the life out of things?” Keith asked.

            “Like the crystal,” Coran confirmed. “And living beings. Alteans have more energy reserves than most species; it’s part of how we’re able to shapeshift…”

            “…and do things like restore Balmeras,” Hunk put in.

            “Exactly, though that takes a very specific type of Altean,” Coran told them all, looking to Allura.

            She felt so weak, so drained, but she couldn’t show it in front of the paladins. She smiled and hoped she looked stronger than she felt right now. And then, behind her, Shiro began screaming.

            She spun and ran over to him, dropping to her knees to try to calm him down. He was sitting upright again, just like he’d awoken from sleeping…which, in a way, he had. She was vaguely aware of Keith keeping the others from getting too close. She knew she should try to send some of her energy into Shiro, to calm him down, but she’d used so much energy defeating the oozebeast. She wanted a way to calm him that wouldn’t require… and then she remembered.

            Allura pressed her hand to Shiro’s cheek and her lips to his, and the screaming stopped. She closed her eyes because it was hard for them to focus on anything with Shiro’s face so close to hers, and she tried to will him to be calm and hoped she was doing this right. Of course, he couldn’t scream while his lips were occupied like this, so if nothing else, it helped on that score.

            “What is she doing?” she heard Coran ask.

            “Uh…” Pidge.

            “We should… go.” Keith.

            “If I’d known that’s what it would take…” Lance was saying.

            “We should go NOW,” Keith reiterated in annoyance.

            “Explanation?” Coran was demanding.

            Allura pulled back from Shiro and let her hand drop from his cheek to his shoulder as she opened her eyes to smile hopefully at him. “Calmer now?” she asked. _I really, really hope so. I’m too tired. Don’t make me use more of my energy right now._ He blinked at her, still breathing hard and looking very, very confused. _He’s not screaming_. She took that as a success.

            “Yeah, okay, we’re leaving,” Keith said. He and Lance were near the door, which was hanging open as its sensors registered their presence. Keith shoved Lance – literally – out into the hallway and followed after him.

            “I’d still like someone to explain,” Coran pouted.

            “It’s a way to calm Earthlings down,” Allura told him brightly. “Or at least it calms Shiro.”

            Pidge coughed. “Maybe when you do it.”

            “Uh, that’s not… exactly…” Hunk began.

            Shiro stood suddenly – perhaps too suddenly, as he had to catch himself against the wall with his left arm – looked at Allura for a moment and then shook his head. “That’s… that’s my fault. I’m sorry. I’m just… sorry for all of this.” And he left.

            Allura frowned as she got to her feet. “Have I done something wrong?”

            “This is going to take some explanation,” Hunk said.

            “FINALLY!” Coran huffed.

            “And Pidge and I can do that while we work on fixing the… everything.” He pointed at the still flickering lights. “Coran, is there a way to restore energy to the crystal?”

            “I can give it some of mine; might tide it over until Allura’s feeling better, but ultimately she’d have to do it.”

            “I’m not sure if I can right now,” she sighed wearily, “but I’m willing to try.”

            “No,” Coran said firmly. “You’ve done too much already, and you’ve been doing too much for a while now! Hunting down the paladins, healing Shiro and helping him with those nightmares of his, and now this?” He shook his head. “Your father’d have a fit if I let you do one more thing right now.”

            She was about to point out that Father wasn’t here, but the reminder made her feel every drop of weariness in her. She was confused, she was tired, and Coran was right. She sighed. “Very well.”

            “Sit down, Princess,” Pidge said, offering her terminal to her. “And we’ll get started on fixing the ship.”

            “And on teaching you about kissing,” Hunk added. Coran opened his mouth, but Hunk beat him to it. “Yes, Coran, you can learn, too.”

 

            “Dude, what the hell?” Lance asked as Keith practically marched him along the hallway.

            “We need to talk,” Keith said.

            “Do we need to talk at swordpoint?”

            “Oh, sorry.” The sword turned back into a bayard and Keith shoved it in his pocket. “Just after the battle and all that…”

            “Yeah huh.”

            “Here.” The door to Keith’s room opened for them. The lights stabilized, though they weren’t quite as bright as usual.

            “FINE.” Lance stalked in and turned to face Keith, folding his arms expectantly. (SOME people put their bayards away right after battle, KEITH.) “What.”

            Keith walked just far enough into the room so the door would shut. “You know what.”

            “I know you’re a what.”

            “What does that even mean?!”

            “Not actually sure but it doesn’t matter,” Lance told him loftily.

            “…yeah, okay, you’re right on that last part anyway,” Keith admitted. Lance smirked, enjoying the small triumph. “But we need to talk about what happened.”

            “What happened when?” _Because I don’t know if you’re talking about the same What Happened that I’m thinking about which is when we were sparring and I could have kissed you and I think you might actually have wanted me to but I wasn’t sure and then you left and we haven’t really talked since then, but maybe you **don’t** mean that What Happened and if you mean some other What Happened then I don’t want to bring that up because that whole thing was SUPER awkward and yeah we probably should talk about it but YOU FIRST, KEITH, so there._

“Back when we were sparring.”

            **_HA!_** _Oh, quiznak, now we have to talk about it._ Lance looked off to one side, but that was Keith’s bed, so he tried to look away quickly but not too quickly, like he didn’t want to look at Keith’s bed, or like that had any sort of significance in things whatsoever... _Play it cool, play it cool._

            “You know,” Keith continued, “back when I was kicking your a-…”

            Lance whipped his head back around to glare at Keith. “You were not!”

            “Yeah, I was, actually,” and he was smirking, and Lance hated it when Keith smirked, but he had to admit, it did look good on him.

            “You might possibly maybe have been considered to be winning if an uninitiated onlooker was, y’know, looking on and such, but I think we both know who actually won.”

            “Uh… technically we stopped sparring and I left.”

            “Because I won.”

            “You didn’t…” Keith backed down and exhaled harshly. “That’s not even what we need to be talking about, and stop changing the subject.”

            “ME change the subject?! You’re the one who won’t admit he lost!”

            “THIS ISN’T ABOUT WHO WON OR LOST!” Keith yelled.

            Lance sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know, but that’s an easier thing to talk about.” He looked over at Keith. “I didn’t mean to creep you out.”

            “Y-you didn’t. It was… I just had this really stupid thought, and…”

            Lance forced a laugh. “Yeah, me, too. Like SUPER stupid. Stupider than any other thought I’ve _ever_ had.”

            “Stupider than…? Wow, that’d have to be really stupid,” Keith commented.

            “Yeah, exactly!”

            Keith frowned. “Do you do that on purpose?”

            “What?”

            He shook his head. “Nevermind. But this… this stupid thought, it- it’s not going away, and…”

            “Yeah. Uh. But are we even talking about the same stupid thought?”

            “Um. That’s kind of what we have to talk about.”

            “Okay, look,” Lance said, summoning up his courage. If he could take down Galra soldiers left, right, and center (and he totally could, of course), then he could do this, dammit. _One of us has to stop being a wuss, and it is totally going to be me._ “My stupid thought – and it’s really, really stupid – was that…” _STOP BEING A WUSS._ “…you kinda looked like… almost like you wanted to be kissed.” He forced another laugh and tried to calm himself down with the knowledge that he had been _braver than Keith SO HA who’s the best now, washout?!_

            But Keith blushed a little and swallowed hard. He didn’t look away though. “That was kind of my stupid thought, too.”

            “What, that _I_ wanted to be kissed?”

            “No. Ye-…no.” The blushing got worse. “I wondered what I’d do if you kissed me, and I was… kind of curious if you were going to.”

            “Oh.” Lance felt his own face heating up, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot a little.

            “But it was just a thought, and it doesn’t…”

            “What _would_ you have done?” Lance asked.

            “Hm? Oh. I’m not sure.” He was silent a moment, and then said, “I guess that’d depend on the quality of the kiss.”

            “What?” Lance’s blush fled as outrage bubbled up within him. “What do you mean ‘depend on the quality’?! You saying I can’t kiss right?”

            The smirk was coming back. “I’m saying I don’t know if you kiss well.”

            “Oh yeah? You wanna find out?!”

            “Maybe I do!”

            “FINE! Pucker up!” Lance closed his eyes and puckered his lips defiantly because GODDAMMIT, now it was a challenge. _He thinks I can’t kiss right?! I’LL SHOW YOU!_

            His eyes flew open when Keith practically grabbed his face. The smirk was gone (that was a pity), replaced by a look that tended to be even more infuriating to Lance: Keith’s “You’re Not Doing This Right” face. Lance was going to protest, but it was hard to talk with Keith’s hands either side of his head and his lips still puckered, and then… Keith kissed him.

            It was surprisingly gentle; Lance had been half-expecting him to shove his lips at him. And that actually would’ve been awesome because it would’ve been sloppy and reckless _JUST LIKE YOU, KEITH_ , and it would’ve been something he could lord over him. It would’ve been a(nother) WIN.

            But this was nice, and Lance sort of forgot that his Honor as a Kisser was on the line. He combed his fingers into the mullet – without grabbing and pulling this time – and pulled Keith closer to him with his other hand. He was ready to let go immediately if he encountered resistance, but Keith sort of melted into his arms, and Lance let himself stop thinking about victory over Keith and just think of… Keith himself.

            It felt like they were kissing for a long time, but it wasn’t long enough when Keith finally pulled away again. Lance tried to catch his breath as he looked into those eyes that were like just-falling night. And then he noticed Keith was blushing and even though Lance was pretty sure he was too – his face felt hot anyway – he couldn’t help grinning. “See? I win.”

            Keith frowned, cheeks still red, and let his hands fall to Lance’s shoulders. “This wasn’t a contest.”

            “YOU, sir, challenged my abilities as a kisser.”

            “I said I didn’t know what they were. That was true.”

            “And now that you _do_ know?”

            “Nuh uh,” Keith said with a small shake of his head. “That was _one_ kiss.”

            “But a nice one.”

            “Maybe that’s just ‘cause of me. I put more work into that kiss than you did.”

            “WHAT?!”

            “Not so loud.”

            “Sorry. But seriously! That was a great kiss!”

            “Maaaybe. I’m not ready to say _you’re_ a great – or even good – kisser without further testing.”

            “I…” And then that smirk was back on Keith’s lips and Lance gave up protesting because there were better ways to prove his point. _Fine. You need more testing, buddy, **you got it**._

           

            “So, what you’re saying is that it’s _not_ a calming gesture at all,” Coran summarized.

            “It… can be?” Pidge said with a shrug. The lights were stable now, life support and gravity control checked out fine, but all other systems were almost entirely depleted. Hunk was reassembling the main control panel, getting its power converter back in place to help get the other systems started recharging at least. Coran’s ability to rejuvenate a crystal was miniscule compared to the princess’s. He glanced over at her and, yes, just as he’d thought, she was still sitting there, red-faced and shocked at the cultural update they’d been given.

            “It’s affectionate,” Hunk repeated. It’d been his main contribution to the conversation as he focused on fixing the ship. “Sometimes, that’s calming. Sometimes, that’s kind of the opposite of calming. Y’know, if you… if you know what I mean?”

            “Yes, I think I do,” Coran said, because Allura was still not saying a word. _So, that brings up the question of how she knew about it in the first place…?_ But he wasn’t going to say that aloud. Embarrassing Allura had a time and a place, and this was not it, not when it looked like she was going to pass out from embarrassment as it was. He would be a good and loyal advisor and try to spare her further mortification.

            Unfortunately, paladins would be paladins. “So where’d you get the idea it was a calming thing?” Hunk asked.

            “And how’d you know what it was in the first place if Alteans don’t kiss?” Pidge asked much more slyly.

            Coran cleared his throat and stepped forward to intercede on his princess’s behalf, but she rose to her feet slowly but, thank goodness, steadily. “I need to have a talk with Shiro.”

            But before she could leave, a blast rocked the Castle hard, knocking them all off their feet.

            “What the…?!”

            “I think we’re under attack,” Hunk put in helpfully.

            “Thank you, Hunk,” Coran said dryly.

            Pidge started going down the list as she got back to her feet. “We’ve got no sensors, no screens, and...”

            “No shield or weapons!” Coran finished for her.

            “Do we have enough energy to open the hangars?!” Allura asked.

            “Uhhh… hopefully?” Hunk replied.

            “Guess we’re going to find out!” Pidge said, already running for the doors.

 

 

            “Careful with those shots,” Drapst barked. “They’re only meant to make sure the ship isn’t going anywhere. Emperor Zarkon wants them all brought back in one piece.” She looked out at the seemingly lifeless Castle of Lions and grinned. “All the hard work is already done. We’re just the cleanup crew.”

            Her grin fell as the lions swooped out of their hangar bays. “Open a channel to our other ships. We need to coordinate here.” There was a quiet affirmative as Drapst looked out at the scene. _If that thing did even half what we needed it to, there should be no problem. I will trust in the Emperor and the druids._

            “Well, it looks like today’s going to be a little more interesting than we thought.”

 

 

            “Does anyone else count four Galra _fleets_?!” Keith asked.

            “Shouldn’t we wormhole away? Like, we are in NO shape for this fight,” Lance pointed out.

            “Yeah, except we’re in such bad shape that we _can’t wormhole_ ,” Hunk responded.

            “Even if the Castle itself could do it right now, Allura’s energy levels are way too low,” Pidge explained. “And, let’s face it, the Castle _cannot_ do it right now with its systems as depleted as they are.”

            “Then we’re going to have to fight, guys,” Shiro told them all. “And this isn’t a matter of buying time. The Castle is completely defenseless. We win or it’s game over.”

            “You might need to work on your motivational speeches, Shiro,” Hunk whimpered.

            “Hey, Lance! Bet I can take out more Galra ships than you can,” Keith taunted as the Galra ships unleashed their fighters.

            “HA! YOU WANNA BET?”

            “Uh, yeah, I just literally said I did.”

            “Fighters are five points, the midrange are ten, and the big’uns are twenty!” Lance declared, and the two swooped off to start their counts.

            “Well, they’re enthusiastic at least,” and then Pidge flew off after them to start her own counts.

            “Just don’t get too reckless,” Shiro said. _The lions work, but I’m not sure we can do much else with them. Like forming Voltron._ He hung back, taking on anything that tried to get too close to the Castle. Hunk flew back to do the same on the other side. There was an emptiness around Shiro that was almost suffocating. He’d been caught up on the oozebeast en route to the Black Lion, and it all made sense now: the lack of ‘communication’ with the lions, the systems troubles, etc.

            They were sitting ducks right now, which was exactly what the ooze was supposed to do to them. And they couldn’t count on the lions “helping” them right now: no more little tips and tricks. No support from semi-mystical alien robot cats. It was do or die and they were pretty much on their own.

            It used to be he thrived on this sort of thing. It was part of why he’d taken Keith under his wing: he recognized a kindred spirit. Shiro had learned to temper it though, and Keith… well, Keith couldn’t be tempered by anything except time, it seemed. But as a boy, Shiro had wanted the glory, the danger, the back-against-the-wall and all-out-against-the-enemy action.

            He didn’t want that anymore. He still wanted victory, and he wouldn’t back down from a fight if there was no other way, but this… _the odds are not looking good_. The fighters seemed to be mostly ignoring the Castle, and aiming to incapacitate rather than kill. _That’s about our only bit of good luck here_ , he thought. _We’ll be taken prisoner… back to Zarkon…_

            Flashes again: of pain, of blood, of the cries of the crowd and the cackling of those demonic druids. The clanging stomp of sentries going past his cell. Those were memories, or what little he had of them.

            And the thought came that everything that had happened to him would happen to the others. To Keith, and Pidge, and Hunk, and Lance. To Coran and… to Allura. And with Voltron in Zarkon’s hands, there’d be nothing anyone could do about it.

            This time it would be Allura’s pain, Allura’s blood, and Keith’s and everyone else’s… who knew what they would do to her? To all of them?

            His Lion rocked viciously, but he hardly noticed. He’d stopped fighting, caught between the nightmares of his past and the new nightmares of the future.

            “Paladins!” It was Allura. The transmission crackled weakly and broke in and out, but from what he could hear of her, her voice was strong. It dragged him back out of his own mind. “You must… -ltron… only way…!”

            “Uh, Princess, if you’re saying we have to form Voltron, I’m not sure that’s going to happen,” Pidge replied.

            “…u MUST!”

            “WE CAN’T!” Lance shouted. “We don’t have our connections to our lions anymore! Like Blue is just… Blue’s just _gone_.” He sniffled.

            “…can do it! I belie-…!”

            “Oh no.” Shiro’s eyes widened in horror. One of the warships was readying its cannon. It was aimed right at the Castle. _Voltron isn’t expendable to Zarkon… but Allura is._ His mind scrambled for a solution.

            Allura was practically screaming. “…NOT ONLY… TO THE LIONS! …ALSO TO…”

            His brain filled in the gaps. “Guys! We can do this!”

            “Uh, Shiro?” Hunk spoke up. “No offense or anything, but we couldn’t even do it _last_ time.”

            _This time will be different. It **has** to. _ But aloud, he said, “We have to try, at least!”

            “But **how**?!” Lance was still upset over the silent Blue.

            “The connection to our lions is only part of it! It’s also about our connection _to each other_. WE CAN DO THIS. I know we can, because I believe in you guys.”

            “We believe in you, too, Shiro,” Keith replied immediately.

            “Absolutely,” Pidge said.

            “It’s now or never! Let’s FORM VOLTRON!”

            There was a quiet little pit of doubt in his stomach, a nagging worry in his mind, but Shiro closed his eyes and drowned them out. _They need me. I need them. We need each other, and the universe needs us. We can’t fail._

           

            In Red, Keith closed his eyes and reached out to his fellow pilots. More importantly, he let them in, something he wasn’t used to doing. _But I trust Shiro. I trust Pidge. I trust Hunk. And Lance… they would never hurt me. And I can’t sit by and do nothing and let everyone die. Maybe this shouldn’t work… but it’s GOT TO WORK. There’s no other way._

            Lance closed his eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to form Voltron that first time, when they had no idea what they were doing, and then everything had just …Clicked. _Blue may be gone, but Hunk still has my back. Pidge and Shiro still have my back. And if we die, I won’t ever get Keith to admit what a great kisser I am. I’m also totally ahead in my Galra ship totals, and he needs to know that. We can’t die here. I’m not done yet._

Hunk patted Goldie’s nearest panel and closed his eyes. _We’re a team. We’re a family. We’re all Coran and Allura have. We’re all any of us have, and all the universe has, too. Freeing Shay and her people on the Balmera will all have been for nothing if we can’t do this. We’ve gotta do this. There’s no choice. And we can. I know we can._

Pidge closed her eyes. Images of her family sprung to mind immediately. _I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry, Matt. But I’ll find you. I WILL. I’ll save you and bring you home, and we’ll be a family again and I’ll finally get to tell you that I understand now, Dad. I understand how you could value other people as much as your family, because I have the team now. I will always love you, but I love them all, too, like a big pack of dorky, stupid older brothers._ She grinned, eyes still closed. _We’re always going to be together. And together, we can do anything. I get it now, Dad. I get it._

 

           

            “What’s happening, Drapst?” Commander Smeq demanded.

            “…Something that shouldn’t be,” she replied in horror. She turned to her crew and yelled, “Fire that cannon as soon as it’s ready!”

            Before her crewmen could answer, alarm klaxons began screaming. _We’re too late._

 

 

            Voltron’s sword sliced straight through the cannon’s barrel before Keith plunged it into the firing assembly. Jets on the back and legs fired and they dragged the sword straight through the ship, cutting it mostly in two. Pidge fired off a laser blast into the heart of the ship, and they swooped towards the next closest warship.

            “Guys, the Castle!” Lance exclaimed. The fighters were swarming the defenseless Castle now.

            “Hunk,” was all Shiro had to say, and Voltron turned back towards the Castle of Lions, shoulder cannon forming. The targeting reticles picked out and then picked off the fighters as they pulled the trigger.

            Two of the fleets were already pulling back. The shoulder cannon saw good use on those staying behind. In true Galra fashion, some preferred death to retreat. “We should go after the ones that ran,” Keith said.

            “No. We stay and defend the Castle,” Shiro told them. “We’re not the murderers the Galra are, and we can’t abandon Coran and the princess when they don’t even have shields, let alone a way to fight back.” Those who continued to fight were taken out quickly, and in the end, there was just Voltron and the Castle, floating in space. “Everyone okay?”

            “I can’t believe we did this. AGAIN!” Hunk declared. “I mean, we formed Voltron lots of times, but never like this! Oh man, I love you guys, and NO, KEITH, the G-forces are _not_ messing with my head this time.”

            “Do we have to disband?” Lance asked. “I mean, I know we do, but I…”

            “…miss Blue, right?” Keith finished for him. “Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s lonely flying in my lion now, and it didn’t used to be.”

            “We have to at some point; we can’t get back into the Castle otherwise,” Pidge pointed out sadly. “And Hunk and I can help get the systems back online, so…”

            “Yeah, sorry, guys,” Shiro said. “We have to.”

            But there was a long moment where nothing happened.

            “Just… just five more minutes?” Lance whined.

            “Lance…” Shiro began, but Keith interrupted him.

            “Hey, bet I can make it back to my hangar before you can, Lance.”

            “What?! Since WHEN?!”

            “Since my lion’s the fastest, obviously.”

            “You’re such a liar, Mullet.”

            “Oh god, can we PLEASE disband?” Pidge interjected.

            As Voltron went from being one huge, huge, awesome robot to five lions again, each of the paladins was struck with a new feeling:

            Lance felt comforted, like he had a buddy at his back again, one who got all his jokes and knew exactly what he meant no matter what he said.

            Pidge felt like she had a twin sister all of a sudden, someone who knew her inside and out and could never, ever be taken from her.

            Hunk felt like he’d just sat down to grandma’s table, and there was an abundance of love and warmth for him whenever he needed it.

            Keith felt the bond of a kindred spirit, a brother not of blood but just as strong, the sort of friend who would be with him through thick and thin no matter how ‘hotheaded and stupid’ he got.

            Shiro felt supported by a steady hand, almost literally: like it was there, overlaid over his own right hand on the control stick. He could almost hear it say to him, “We’re ready. We can do this. Together.”

            “WHOA,” all five paladins said at once as their lions roared.

 

 

            Zarkon was unhappy with the news when it was brought to him. Commander Smeq’s pleas for mercy went unheard. “I weary of your creations’ constant defeats,” he warned Haggar as the screen – and Smeq’s screams – cut off.

            “My experiments will continue, and we will find success,” she promised him. “If nothing else, this gives me more data to work with.”

            “Work faster,” he told her. “And better. Voltron cannot be allowed to remain in their hands.”

            “It will be ours again,” she swore.

            “It had better be.”

 

 

            It took them days to get the Castle back in working order. It took several recharges to get the crystal stabilized. They weren’t within easy flight range of a Balmera to outright replace the crystal, and the flight systems weren’t as high on the list as sensors and shields anyway. Wormholing was still impossible. Allura needed to rest after each recharge of the crystal, and there was still some residual ooze in some of the systems that had to be flushed out (the mice were a big help with that), tased, and disposed of.

            The paladins split their time between chores, running errands for Pidge, Hunk, and Coran, and bonding with their lions, now that it was possible again. Allura was either helping with the systems checks, recharging the crystal, or recharging herself with new-and-improved food goo and sleep.

            Shiro’s nightmares had improved some: he fell into bed each night exhausted from helping wherever and however he could all day. He felt like, even if there was some sort of dark Galra magic in his arm, it wasn’t enough to change him. He had control over it. The nightmares hadn’t gone away, of course, but he didn’t wake screaming quite as often, and he got back to sleep easier.

            Things were better, and they were back en route to the Corellian system. He had half a day before training flights started. _I have to do this now._ The Castle systems located her in a place he hadn’t quite expected though.

            “Allura?” he asked carefully as he approached her.

            She turned from looking up at the Blue Lion. “Hello, Shiro.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

            “What are you doing down here?” he asked. He felt Blue acknowledge him, but it was distant, civil, a friend of a friend giving a nod that said “I know you,” and not the welcome he got from the Black Lion. It was still a little strange to be greeted by another lion though.

            “Thinking.” She turned to look back up at Blue. “It’s so good that the lions’ quintessences are now more like all of you than like their original pilots. I think that will help the next time we have to face Zarkon.” She looked over at him as he came to stand next to her. “I doubt that _your_ Black Lion would tolerate Zarkon without a fight. He might still be able to do it,” she warned, looking back up at Blue, “because we still don’t know how he managed it the first time. But your connection is much, _much_ stronger.”

            “So that’s what’s got you down here, looking up at Blue like that?”

            “Like what?”

            “Sad,” he said. “Not tired, for a change, which is nice, but still sad.”

            “It’s nothing, Shiro. Don’t worry about it.”

He frowned and thought for a moment before reminding her gently, “Allura, you can always confide in me if you need to.”

            She smiled sadly at him for a moment, then looked away from both him and Lance’s lion. “I just miss my father.”

            “Your father?” His brow furrowed.

            “His personality and knowledge were in the AI, but there was still some of his quintessence in the Blue Lion, before all of this.” She did look at the lion again now. “That’s how it had the ability to wormhole all of you to Arus: my father’s residual energy left in the lion. And it’s gone now. My last link to him.”

            “I’m sorry.”

She sighed and walked over to pat one massive paw. Then she took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled. “I suppose I should leave, before either Lance _or_ his lion thinks I have some sort of secret desire for him.” She rolled her eyes.

            “Take all the time you need. Lance is a bit… occupied at the moment.” Shiro smiled a little. “He’s in Keith’s room, so he’ll be there a while, I’m sure. So long as Blue promises not to tell, I think you’re safe.”

            She snorted once, and it blew away a pinch of the sadness in her smile. “I’m not sure I can trust _Lance’s_ lion not to tattle.” She turned to face him and he watched her resettle herself, pushing away the sadness. Her ability to do that was part of what made her a good leader, but he also hated to see her deny her feelings like that, even if it was only temporarily. She seemed to have to do it so often. _We all ask so much of her_. He was here to ask more of her as it was, and he began to rethink it. _But I need to get this over with_.

            “Did you need something, Shiro?” she asked.

            “Yes, but… maybe we _should_ do this somewhere else?” He looked up at the Lion. “Because now that you mention it, I’m not sure I _do_ trust it not to tattle.” She laughed a little, which was his goal in saying it in the first place. He trusted all the lions, when it was important. Or, at least, he did now. Because they were part of his team, and his team was part of them. “But if you don’t mind, then I don’t.”

            “Well, that depends on the issue, I suppose.”

            “I need to apologize to you. It’s long overdue, and I’m sorry it took me this long. I… don’t have a good reason for how late it is, but…”

            She laid a hand on his arm; if she meant it to shut him up before he started babbling, well, it worked. “What is it? I can’t think of anything you’ve done that you need to apologize for, unless it’s that terrible joke you told at breakfast.”

            “Don’t care for puns, huh?”

            “Not bad ones, anyway.” She made a face. “But you seemed far too pleased with yourself, so I doubt that’s what you want to apologize for.” She pulled her hand away and folded it over her other hand in front of her.

            “You’re right, it’s not.” He cleared his throat. “I… shouldn’t have kissed you. That night. It was bad enough to kiss you without your express permission, but finding out you didn’t even know what it was… It’s inexcusable. I am very, very sorry, Princess.”

            She frowned, and he began to worry that his apology wasn’t enough, which was, of course, entirely up to her. He was resolved to accept whatever punishment she deemed appropriate for his misbehavior. “Why are you addressing me with my title, Shiro?”

            That wasn’t what he was expecting. “I... am I not supposed to?”

“This is a personal issue, not one of governance, administration, or diplomacy. It’s out of place.”

            “I’m sorry. I’ll try to remember that. But my apology…”

            “…is accepted. You didn’t know I didn’t know. I forgive you.”

            He sighed in relief. “Thank you, Allura.” He started to leave, to let his thudding heart calm down again now that his apology had been made and accepted.

            “I have my own apology to offer.”

            He stopped and turned back towards her. “Yours? You have no reason to apologize.”

            “I kissed you without your consent, did I not? On the bridge, just after the battle with that oozeball-creature.”

            “That was still my fault,” he insisted.

            “How so?”

            “I should’ve apologized and explained to you before that point, and it would never have happened. Heck, if I’d _not kissed you in the first place_ , like I should’ve done…”

            “Shiro.” Her voice was crisp, almost short, but she stepped towards him and put a hand on his chest as if she were going to calm him with her energy again, almost as if it were a threat. Her hand didn’t glow this time though. “You made a mistake. I’ve accepted your apology for it. Now stop, and listen.” He nodded. “I made you uncomfortable. I did something in public that should’ve been kept private. And I’m sorry for that.”

            “Y-you didn’t know.” He hoped she couldn’t feel his heartbeat still pounding a mile a minute, but he didn’t see how that was possible. He tried not to think about it.

            “True, but that’s not a good excuse. Do you accept my apology?”

            “Of course.” He smiled, glad to have gotten this all out of the way. Things could go back to normal now. _Normal, everyday stuff like fighting Zarkon and saving the universe._

            “I do have a question though, if you’re not too busy at the moment?”

            “Well, it’s this or hauling parts around for Coran, so… no, I’m not busy.” He grinned a little. “What is it?”

            She glanced over her shoulder at the Blue Lion and chewed her lower lip a little. He couldn’t help watching the gesture, and had to wrest his gaze back to her eyes when she turned back to him. “Well, you… you haven’t said _why_ you kissed me in the first place.”

            There were about half a dozen expletives that went through his mind about then, and he felt his face heat. “I… thought Pidge and Hunk explained kissing to you?”

            “They did, but I’m worried I might be misunderstanding the explanation. And even if I’m not, it seems kissing can be a gesture of different kinds of affection. They said that family members kiss each other, and, in some Earth cultures, it’s a friendly greeting, to kiss on the cheek.”

            “Well, we’re not related,” he pointed out to her _and thank all that’s good and great for **that** or this would be even more awkward_. “And it’s not a common greeting amongst friends in my particular culture.” _Also…_

She finished that thought before he could. “And you didn’t kiss me on the cheek.”

            “Right.” He cleared his throat again. Her hand was still on his chest, right over his heart.

            “So, you meant it as…romantic affection, then?” Her cheeks were darkening, and he wanted to believe that meant… _but my wanting to believe certain things is what got me into all this trouble in the first place._ He cleared his throat again, more as a way to stall for time than out of any need to. He licked suddenly dry lips and tried, in vain, to slow his pulse and breathing down.

            “I did,” he confirmed. “I mean, I still shouldn’t have done it. It’s no excuse, but I was so exhausted and strung-out from the nightmares, and you were there comforting me, and I… misread things. I saw what I wanted to see, not what was. I’m sorry.”

            “Oh, don’t be!” she rushed to say. “Not for that. Don’t apologize for your _feelings_ , Shiro. Especially not for these.” She looked at her hand on his chest. “It feels like you need to be calmed again. Should I?” She looked up at his face again with that cute, quizzical expression.

            “You don’t have to,” he said quickly. “You’ve spent so much energy the last few days; don’t waste it on me. Especially not for...” But she’d made up her mind: her hand glowed and he couldn’t help closing his eyes. It was sort of like a kiss, in a way, this feeling: intimate, energizing but also relaxing, a sense of belonging and home that was always so uniquely her. _Every time she does this, I fall a little farther…_ which was all the more reason that he should stop her from doing it. He lifted his right hand to hers on his heart, intending to gently remove it…

            His arm froze for a moment when he touched her hand, locked in a stasis he couldn’t break. His eyes flew to it in confusion and panic. He was aware, at the corner of his perception, that she was looking at it, too. The glow of her hand stopped and then he could move it again, though he didn’t. From the outside, it didn’t seem to have changed, but he could feel it. It felt less …alien. _Which doesn’t even really make sense: it has one kind of alien energy and it just…interacted with? another kind of alien energy. If anything, it should feel_ more _alien, not less._

            He looked to her at the same time she lifted her eyes to him. They stared at each other and then looked at his arm again. He hesitantly removed it from her hand and flexed it experimentally. Her hand dropped away from his chest.

            “Does it feel different?”

            “Sort of? Better. Less… evil?” He chuckled thinly. “That might just be my perception.”

            “But that’s important.” She took hold of his right hand with both of hers. He was a little afraid she’d spend more energy on him again, right now, but she didn’t, only held his hand and beamed up at him. “I know it’s been bothering you, but it’s not inherently evil. You can and have done so much good, Shiro.”

            “Using an evil thing for a good purpose doesn’t make it less evil,” he told her. “But, just now… _that_ made it feel less evil. It felt… more like me, and less like some Galra abomination grafted onto me.” He smiled. “Because of you.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re amazing, Allura.”

            Her blush bloomed again on her cheeks. “You’re overstating it.”

            “Understating, if anything.” And then he realized he might be laying it on a bit thick, and cleared his throat. _I shouldn’t even be saying these things. She’s a princess and my superior and she’s not interested in my ‘romantic affection’._ But her blush got worse, and he had to tamp down the urge to kiss her cheek. _See? In control. I’ll get over this in time._

            That sounded like a lie, even in his own mind.

            “Shiro, now that I know what this ‘kissing’ means to you, I…”

            “You’ve already apologized,” he reminded her. “Or did you need me to again? I…”

            “No, no, it’s not that. I thought it would be nice to… to try it again. Now that I know.”

            He blinked at her.

            “Shiro?” She pulled a hand away from his and waved it in front of his face. “Are you alright?”

            “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard that right.”

            She sucked in a breath, pulled her shoulders back, and lifted her chin a little. “I would like to kiss you again. And not because I think it will calm you down out of a nightmare.”

            He licked his lips again. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea?”

            “Why not?” She looked almost hurt, and he cursed himself.

            “I don’t… Allura, I’m not sure you understand what’s going on here.”

            She yanked her remaining hand away from his. “I’m not a child, Shiro! I understand perfectly.”

            “Well then, explain it to me?”

            It was her turn to blink at him now, and she followed it up with a laugh. “Is it so hard to believe I’d find you attractive, Shiro?”

            “Um.” His face was heating up again. “A bit? I mean… you’re incredible. You’re… well, so far out of my league that, if my league exploded, you wouldn’t hear the sound for three days.”

            She laughed. “I think you underestimate yourself. Or overestimate me. Perhaps both.”

            He fished about for something to say and settled for, “I won’t argue with you. I want to, but I won’t.”

            “Good. That’s settled then.” She stepped closer to him again and smiled up at him. “May I kiss you, Shiro? Would that bother you?”

            “Not at all. I’d… I’d like that a lot.” He looked into her eyes, slid his arms around her, and leaned in. This time, she met him halfway.

 

 

            “You ever get the feeling you’re the only one not hooking up?” Hunk asked.

            “You ever get the feeling you’re literally the last man of your entire race?” Coran retorted.

            “You ever get the feeling you’re the only one getting any work done around here?” Pidge countered. “Hand me that spanner.”

            Hunk handed it over and went back to looking at the screens: the blue and red dots were in Keith’s room; the black and pink dots were in the Blue Lion hangar. Both pairs of dots were very, very close to one another. “I mean, I’m super happy for them all, but it’s just…”

            “You miss your girrrrrrrrrlfrieeeennnnnd,” Pidge sing-songed from her spot half-inside one of the control panels.

            “SHAY IS NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!”

            “Only ‘cause you didn’t ask her out.”

            “Pidge. We’re in space. We’re fighting an evil alien overlord who’s been conquering the galaxy for millennia. I kind of don’t have the ability to ask Sh- …ANYONE out for a movie and a slice.”

            “It’s not stopping _them_ ,” she retorted.

            “I just don’t want things to get weird.”

            “We’re in space fighting an evil alien overlord,” Pidge repeated, “with our giant robot cats that turn into an even giant-er robot man. We’re way past things ‘getting weird’, Hunk.”

            “NOT the weird I meant.”

            She pulled herself out of the panel. “Yeah, I know. But no matter how weird things get, we’re always going to be there for each other.” She grinned up at Hunk and Coran. “And that’s what really matters.”

            “Yeah, you’re right. So, hey, we don’t have movies or slices, but how about the three of us go get some food goo together? Y’know, as buddies, not as a date.”

            “Yeah, no kissing, thanks,” Pidge said, bouncing up from the floor.

            “Just as well,” Coran said. “I’m not sure I’m that fond of you two.”

            “Gee, thanks, Coran,” Hunk deadpanned.

            “Did you want a kiss, Hunk?” Coran grinned.

            “Not from you!”

            “He wants one from his girl-rock!” Pidge teased. And she took off running as Hunk chased after her.

            “Paladins,” Coran said with a shrug.

 


End file.
